Scoring rubric

The approximate cost of everything the demo needs, in US dollars.

1. $0

   Free: can be done in its entirety by someone without a bank account. Baseline assumption is an internet connection.

How fancy the tools are that you need to fabricate the required parts and/or assemble them together.

1. 0

   No tools required.

2. 1

   Common everyday household or office items. Scissors, tape, microwave, etc.

3. 2

   Common garage tools. Hand screwdriver, pliers, allen wrenches, etc.

4. 3

   FDM 3D printer, hand drill, etc.

5. 4

   Drill press, metal tapping, soldering iron

6. 5

   Wood/acrylic laser cutter

7. 6

   Manual machining

8. 7

   Resin 3D printer, CNC machining/routing of wood/plastic

9. 8

   Metal laser cutter, CNC machining of metal

10. 9

11. 10

    EDM, diamond turning, cleanroom processing (lithography/deposition/etch). Essentially, inaccessible unless you’ve got connections

Assuming you have all the required tools, how hard it is to make and/or assemble the required parts. Meant to convey the care or craftsmanship required, which is related to the complexity of the parts. Note that the difficulty of any optical alignment is excluded from this category.

1. 0

   Purchased off-the-shelf in an already fully assembled state.

2. 1

3. 2

   Like a simple lego set, just put the pieces together.

4. 3

   Basic assembly of things on an optical breadboard (screwing stuff together). See also: assembling IKEA furniture.

5. 4

   First level where your choices can impact the quality of the parts. E.g., 3D printing and laser cutting simple parts is mostly up to the machine, but it is up to you as the user to put the right settings into that machine.

6. 5

   Some skill is required to obtain a nice part. E.g, putting heat-set inserts or magnets into a 3D print.

7. 6

   A higher level of skill/knowledge is required to obtain a nice result. Tapping holes in metal, machining flat and square faces using a manual mill.

8. 7

9. 8

   There is some aspect of the manufacturing that you are unlikely to get right on your first try and should practice on one or multiple test pieces. E.g., tempering chocolate, manually routing out precise pockets in wood using a router.

10. 9

11. 10

    Master artisan levels of hands-on skill. E.g., creating a mechanical wristwatch by hand.

How hard it is to align the optics in the setup. This can range widely depending on available hardware available. Difficulty of optical alignment is highly dependent on knowledge of alignment tricks and past experience, but we try not to factor those into this rating. The rating is based off of the alignment procedure we recommend on that specific demo's page using the recommended optomechanical hardware. Becuase there are many ways that an alignment can be hard, many of the points below are described solely with examples.

1. 0

   No optical alignment required.

2. 1

   Focusing a camera lens (which has a nice focus ring).

3. 2

   Center a laser beam on a target using a tip/tilt mirror.

4. 3

5. 4

   Center a laser on two pinholes in series using two tip/tilt mirrors. Super sensitive XY/focus alignments (Schlieren).

6. 5

   Align a Michelson interferometer with a good (long coherence length) laser source.

7. 6

   Aligning a HeNe laser cavity where you have a second laser available to use to assist in alignment.

8. 7

   Aligning a white light Michelson interferometer that uses a cube beamsplitter, if you have a translation stage. Any alignment which requires mode matching to single mode beams to eachother (e.g. aligning two single mode fiber collimators to eachother with high efficiency).

9. 8

   White light Mach–Zehnder interferometer with wedge beamsplitters + compensation plates. Free space ring resonators.

10. 9

    Free space mode locked laser. Or, anything where multiple resonators must be simultaneously aligned to some common reference/each other.

11. 10

    Literally LIGO

How portable the setup is. Unlike the other scales, a higher number here usually goes with a simpler setup, as the least portable things get a 0. The items here are just examples which mostly refer to optical setups. Some demos get their portability scores bumped down for special transport considerations (can't be turned upside down, temperature sensitive, light sensitive, spill risk, etc.)

1. 0

   Permanent installation with substantial complications in relocating. Example: an optical setup with dozens of components built directly on a full-size optical table that requires water/air from the building

2. 1

   The setup can only barely be transported, likely requiring a special vehicle and causing lots of headache.

3. 2

   Size of the demo is a factor when choosing a vehicle for transportation. For example, if the demo is built on a thick, heavy breadboard, or has fragile exposed optics that need large keep-out areas around them.

4. 3

   Built on a table/breadboard too large to be put inside a bag, with lots of exposed optics on the breadboard you don't want to move/pack for transport.

5. 4

6. 5

   A bit chunky to put in a backpack, but not too fragile. Demo is such that disassembly for travel and light padding of some components is a possibility.

7. 6

8. 7

   If disassembled, could easily be carried in a backpack/bag without issue.

9. 8

10. 9

    Even without disassembly, could be carried in a backpack/bag without issue.

11. 10

    Could be carried around every day in your pocket (examples: hologram business card, pocket polarizers)

Related to but distinct from portability (often correlated). Is somewhat specific to the use case of these projects as something that you make in one place (e.g. your classroom, lab, or garage) then need to take somewhere else to show some audience. This category's score is the amount of time after transporting a demo that it takes to bring it up to a functional state. A non-optics example: a fold-up origami kayak is quite portable but takes a while to set up, while a rigid kayak isn’t very portable but is pretty much ready to go once you’ve lugged it to your destination. Times are conservative, counted once everything is already at the location.

1. 0

   The objects making up the demo can only exist in one configuration, so they’re ready to go merely by possessing them.

2. 1

   Some assembly needed, but only takes a few seconds if you know what you’re doing

3. 2

   1 minute

4. 3

5. 4

   5 minutes

6. 5

7. 6

   10 minutes

8. 7

   15 minutes

9. 8

   30 minutes

10. 9

    1 hour: even if this were the only demo at an event, budget a full hour of setup time after the equipment is at the location

11. 10

    Preparations begin at the site of the demonstration a day or more in advance. Example (non-optics): an FRC competition must begin setting up the field at the venue over a day before the first practice matches

No matter how good the presenter, some projects simply aren't a good fit for certain audiences. An extremely simple and straightforward demo may be boring to advanced audiences, just as a very complex optical setup might require too long and complex of explanation for younger audiences to follow. This category scores this, in terms of how complex the actual act of presenting a demo is and what audiences that is a best fit for. This score can span a wide range - in fact, spanning a very wide range here can be considered a positive, as putting effort into a single project can reach the widest range of audiences.

1. 0

   The logical progression of the demo can be followed by any human. Example: peek-a-boo demonstrates that one’s hands are opaque objects that block light

2. 1

   Kindergarten

3. 2

4. 3

   Middle school

5. 4

   Early high school

6. 5

   Late high school

7. 6

   General undergraduate

8. 7

9. 8

   Physics or optics degree undergraduate

10. 9

    Physics or optics degree graduate student

11. 10

    Expert in this specific subfield/niche topic

This category scores the complexity of the underlying physical concepts that can be explained using this project, by the level of education where that topic would typically be formally taught. Importantly, this does NOT mean that these concepts cannot be explained or comprehended by audiences different than this score! A good presenter should be able to take concepts and make them interesting for anyone.

1. 0

   The underlying optical principles are obvious to every human

2. 1

   Kindergarten

3. 2

4. 3

   Middle school

5. 4

6. 5

   Algebraic physics

7. 6

   Calculus physics

8. 7

   Vector calculus physics

9. 8

   Upper division undergraduate physics/optics

10. 9

    Graduate physics/optics

11. 10

    Cutting edge research project

A subjective rating of how engaged people seem to be. It can only be assessed as high if the demo has been very successful at several events with different types of audiences (within the ranges of the previous two parameters).

1. 0

   People outside of those who built it have zero interest. A sad end of the scale that hopefully doesn’t happen for any project, but still worth representing: some projects are worth doing for the benefit of the people building them alone.

2. 1

3. 2

   People look at it and understand why someone might find it cool, but don’t really feel anything themselves

4. 3

5. 4

6. 5

   Threshold: if at a booth, a decent few people stop and check it out.

7. 6

8. 7

9. 8

   Captivates nearly all attendees who see it and leaves a lasting impression, plus has a fundamentally hands-on component that further enhances the experience. Example: laser puzzle

10. 9

    Such an extraordinarily impressive demo that it gets media attention

11. 10

    Attendees fall to their knees and shed tears, so overcome by emotion they tear at their clothes in despair: they have witnessed the peak sight of their mortal existence, and the rest of their life will be but a series of pointless moments that pale in comparison