Visualizing Cosmic Ray Air Showers With IceTop

Astroparticle physics is an extremely active area of research with a myriad of large experiments hosted in countries around the world. Many of those experiments operate in similar fashion and are capable of detecting extensive air showers, particle cascades initiated by the interaction of cosmic rays in the atmosphere. The pattern of signals recorded by detectors is frequently digitally illustrated for both scientific and outreach purposes. In this talk, I will describe an outreach project aimed at high school and early undergraduate students where the students build a tabletop replica of IceTop, a cosmic ray detector located at the South Pole, that is capable of physically displaying event data recorded by the detector. The project requires little to no prior knowledge and teaches physics research related skills in areas like electronics and coding.