Publications
What we have learned about teaching quantum mechanics with a device you can hold, written up in full.
SPIE Optics and PhotonicsTeaching Quantum Entanglement with Glowing Model Qubits
Thakkar, Chen, Ozdemir, Katuri and Mao · 2026 · 16 pages
Entanglement is a foundational feature of quantum mechanics, yet learners typically encounter it only as a formula or loose analogy. We present two hands-on activities for teaching entanglement, both built on a model qubit: a handheld spherical LED display that renders qubit states in real time. Learners interact by rotating and shaking the device. Paired devices share a single statevector over a wireless link so that two-qubit correlations can be explored directly. The first activity is an outreach demonstration that captures the essence of the Bell paradox and is engaging for children as young as elementary school. The second is a two-and-a-half-hour workshop in which high schoolers and undergraduates act as experimentalists, building a theory of the qubit from their own measurement tallies. In addition, we offer a three-level categorization of quantum knowledge which avoids common misleading analogies and remains faithful to the science. We report a deployment of the outreach activity for 250 students at the Invent the Future expo in Bethesda, Maryland, and deployments of the workshop in the QCaMP high school training program and the BERQ undergraduate training program.
IEEE QSEECTeaching QKD in 5 Minutes: An Experience Report on Two Events with Physical Model Qubits
Thakkar, Chen and Ozdemir · 2026 · 10 pages
Quantum mechanics is notoriously abstract because there are no human-scale objects that obey its rules. Qubi is a hand-held device that mimics a qubit's dynamics for learning and communication. Users can bump two Qubis together to entangle them, and jab either one along a chosen axis to perform a measurement in that basis. A novel spherical LED display renders intuitive visualizations of the underlying quantum state. Our aim is to let learners acquire quantum intuition by direct interaction; the mathematics then quantifies the behaviors they have already internalized. Two deployments are reported. KID Museum 2025 Invent the Future Expo: an open-format booth ran a simplified five-minute version of the Ekert 91 quantum-key-distribution protocol for roughly two hundred elementary- and middle-school visitors. Participants walked away with two intuitions: how a qubit measurement produces a 0 or a 1, and how two entangled qubits can be used to generate a shared secret key. Eleanor Roosevelt High School: a 90-minute classroom pilot used the same hardware to explore measurement, basis choice, and singlet-state entanglement in more depth. Seven student pairs, grades 9-12, went from no prior familiarity to answering complex conceptual questions about the singlet state by the end. Some students arrived at the Born rule and the no-signaling theorem through reasoning and experimentation alone. We frame the paper as an experience report rather than a controlled study and discuss the limitations.