IT'S taken five years, more than £5,000 and the brain power of 20 top-class students but the result has even impressed Cambridge University boffins.
King Edward VI Grammar School is thought to be the only school in the country which has built its own cosmic ray detector.
Usually the preserve of the science departments of the best universities, the detector can pick up on cosmic rays which travel through objects and people, believed to come from far-off galaxies.
The completion of the detector is a proud moment for the Broomfield Road school's head of physics David Hall, who came up with the idea of building one in 2009.
He and a small group of sixth-formers met every Thursday to work on the project, which at first led to a lot of head-scratching.
Mr Hall said: "In the first two years we did not get very far, but in the last two years progress has been much faster. Around 20 students have been involved in the project, many of whom have now left the school. They did all the work while I made some suggestions.
"We consulted Bristol University, which kindly gave us some parts, and Cambridge University. When we told professors there we had finished the project and it was working, they wrote to congratulate us saying this was a project usually only undertaken at universities."
It will now be used to teach pupils at the school about the rays, which are a harmless phenomenon only discovered in the 1920s. It is also expected to be a crowd-puller at the school's open days.
The project has been helped by a grant of £2,000 from the Royal Society, and a £1,500 donation from the school's parents' association.
