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HoloBox for Schools

Build real optics experiments, see light behave like a wave, and record your own digital holograms — no expensive lab required.

The HoloBox is a box of openUC2 cubes plus a small "smart camera" in the form of a Raspberry Pi 5 + Camera Module v2.1. With it you can build the same kinds of experiments that won Nobel Prizes: (Yay!)

  • Michelson interferometer
  • Mach–Zehnder interferometer
  • lensless holographic microscope (Well Gabor won it for Holography, but still! :)

... and then reconstruct the holograms on a computer.

These pages are written for high-school students and their teachers. You don't need university maths. The only thing you need: curiosity!

Show: As part of the holobox you can build a Mach Zehnder Interferometer, where the camera acquires fringes.

Where do I start?​

This documentation is following Diataxis (https://diataxis.fr/) and is split into four kinds of page. Pick the one that matches what you want right now:

I want to build something today => Tutorials​

Step-by-step, can't-fail walkthroughs. Start here if you have the box in front of you.

I know the basics and have a specific goal => How-to guides​

Short, practical recipes for one task each.

I want to understand why it works => Explanation​

Read these on the sofa. No equipment needed.

I just need a number or a definition => Reference​

A suggested classroom journey​

If you're a teacher planning a unit, this order matches the physics build-up used in the Münster teaching materials:

  1. Read Light as a wave and Interference and diffraction.
  2. Build the Michelson interferometer — students see interference with their own eyes.
  3. Discuss What is a hologram? — connect what they saw to the idea of recording a wave.
  4. Build the inline holographic microscope and reconstruct a real sample.
  5. Go deeper with how reconstruction works.

What can you actually observe?​

  • Bright and dark interference fringes that shift when you nudge a mirror by less than a thousandth of a millimetre.
  • A hologram: a pattern of fine rings that looks like nothing — until the computer turns it into a sharp picture of a tiny object.
  • Refocusing after the image is taken - something an ordinary camera can never do.

Open source​

Everything about the HoloBox is open: the hardware (CAD files), the firmware, the reconstruction software, and these teaching materials. You may copy, remix, and reprint them for your class. See the openUC2 docs home for licences.