MiniPIX EDU

Exploring Invisible Ionizing Radiation: MiniPIX EDU Transforms Education

MiniPIX EDU is a miniaturized USB camera designed and priced for educational use. It brings the latest radiation imaging technology to classrooms and lets students discover the invisible world of ionizing radiation surrounding us. NASA uses the same technology in space to monitor the radiation received by the astronauts. Students can explore the origin of different types of radiation particles and see how radioactive isotopes migrate in nature and artificial environments, such as houses, cities, or industrial areas.  

MiniPIX EDU can record minimal levels of radioactivity that are present everywhere around us. Students can visualize the radioactivity of any standard material or object. They can explore variations of the air radioactivity during the day, hunt for cosmic muons and check their directions, and see how altitude affects the presence of radiation types. They can even prepare their own (safe) radioactive source and construct a shield against the radiation it emits. They can check the laws of radioactive decay. Students can directly observe how different radiation types interact with matter and what happens then. 

It is simple as plugging the MiniPIX EDU device into your PC’s USB port and starting the software. Using the proprietary RadView radiation visualization software, fascinating images of ionizing particles will begin to appear in front of you. The students can understand how people benefit from ionizing radiation and radioactivity. See further information and education examples on the other applications page. 

The MiniPIX EDU is a miniaturized and low-power solution of radiation camera with single particle counting (or particle tracking) detector Timepix. The camera incorporates a single Timepix detector (256 x 256 pixels with a pitch of 55 μm) with 300 or 500 μm thick silicon.

MiniPIX EDU fully suits education purposes. However, it has some minor limitations compared to the standard MiniPIX :

• No sensor stability or pixel response patterns are evaluated
• Quality of the chip will be evaluated only in the central area (50% of the entire sensor area)
• One column of bad pixels is allowed in the central area
• Bad pixel clusters of up to 20 pixels are allowed (except column)
• Overall, 1 % of bad pixels in the central area 324 pixels is allowed (including the wrong column if any)
• Quality criteria for 500 μm and 300 μm thick Si sensors are the same
• MiniPIX EDU comes with Pixet Basic software, which has limited functionality compared to Pixet Pro
• MiniPIX EDU is a standalone product with its own specific design. It differs from other cameras in the MiniPIX range not by a license designated for education, but by being a different type of device with different features