Case Study
QCaMP Quantum Fundamentals Workshop
Originally designed for QCaMP 2026, this is a 1.5-hour workshop that teaches the fundamentals of qubits and entanglement from an experimentalist’s point of view. It is completely interactive: a series of hands-on exercises with Qubi guide the entire lesson, with students discovering each rule for themselves.
Designed by Andrew Chen · andrew@qolour.io
Learning outcomes
By the end of the workshop, students can describe and demonstrate the following.
Quantum is about measurement
Students see that quantum theory comes down to predicting measurement outcomes, nothing more mystical than that.
Bloch sphere and the Born rule
A solid, physical understanding of the Bloch sphere, measurement, and how rotation angle sets the odds of each outcome.
Entanglement
The Singlet state introduced hands-on, plus the real consequences, including why entanglement can’t send a message.
Gates (if time allows)
Single-qubit gates and the CX gate, and how combining gates builds new states, including entangled ones.
How the workshop runs
The lesson is built as a loop: students run a short exercise on their Qubis, notice a pattern, and name the discovery themselves, and then the next exercise complicates the picture. Rather than lecturing the rules of quantum mechanics, the workshop lets students rebuild them from the ground up, exactly the way an experimentalist would. It runs in two parts, with a break in between.
Part 1
Single qubits
Students are handed a Qubi and told to treat it as a mysterious object they have to understand. The only way to get information out of it is to measure it, and the whole goal of Part 1 is to build the best mathematical description of what that object does.
Framing: what are we trying to predict?
Imagine you are scientists given a mysterious object called a qubit. There’s only one way to get any output from it: measuring it with a disturbance. Good theories predict outcomes, and the outcome quantum physics predicts is where the light lands when you measure. Start with the simplest theory possible, then add complexity only when the qubit forces you to.
Exercise 1 · Measure a random qubit
- 1Orient the qubit randomly by rotating it however you like.
- 2Measure the qubit by jabbing downward.
- 3Note the outcome. Where can the dot end up?
Discovery
When you measure the qubit, it can only ever land on one of two results: up or down.
Exercise 2 · Measure twice, no rotation
- 1Measure the qubit and note the outcome.
- 2Without rotating it, keeping the same orientation, measure it again and note the outcome.
Discovery
Measure a qubit, then measure it again while nothing changes, and you get the same result. So the qubit must carry some kind of memory, or state, otherwise it couldn’t “remember” its last outcome.
Exercise 3 · Flip it upside down
- 1Measure the qubit and note the outcome.
- 2Flip the qubit upside down and measure again. Same outcome, or different?
Discovery
100% of the time, if you flip a qubit and do nothing else, you get the opposite result.
Switch visualizers
Since the outcomes depend on the previous result and how the qubit is rotated, the Qubi switches into full reveal mode. Now it keeps track of where the last measurement landed and how the qubit has been turned.
Exercise 4 · Rotate 90 degrees
- 1Measure the qubit and note the outcome.
- 2Rotate the qubit 90 degrees clockwise, measure again, and note whether it matched.
Discovery
Rotate the qubit 90 degrees and about half the time you get the same result. The picture is getting clearer.
Exercise 5 · Rotate less than 90 degrees
- 1Measure the qubit and note the outcome.
- 2Rotate the qubit less than 90 degrees, measure, and note whether it matched.
Discovery
Most of the time you get the same outcome, but it’s not guaranteed, and it depends on the angle. Rotate more than 90 degrees and you mostly get the opposite result, but again, not always.
Refining the theory: the Born rule
A qubit isn’t like a flat object falling on a table. The chance of repeating the previous outcome depends on the angle you rotate through: the larger the angle, the more likely you flip. Put simply, whichever pole the state sits closer to, north or south, is the more likely result. Groups record their tallies to see the pattern emerge.
Tying it together: the Bloch sphere
This is now the Bloch sphere. The top is the 0 state, the bottom is the 1 state, measurements always give 0 or 1, and quantum gates are just rotations of the state around the sphere. The qubit is in superposition whenever the state isn’t exactly on the top or bottom. Three quick concept-check questions close out Part 1 before the break.
Part 2
Quantum entanglement
Each group gets a pair of linked Qubis. Holding them in a standard orientation, students discover a “mystery procedure,” and spend Part 2 trying, and failing, to explain it with the theory they just built.
The mystery procedure
Someone in the scientific community discovered that when you lightly hit two of these Qubis together, something strange happens. A yellow flash means it worked. This is the mystery procedure, and it puts the pair into a mystery state.
Exercises 1 to 3 · Measure the entangled pair
- 1Run the mystery procedure, then measure qubit A. Up or down, about half the time each.
- 2Do it again and measure qubit B. Same story, nothing surprising yet.
- 3Now run it and measure both qubits, noting both outcomes.
Discovery
Nobody gets up-up or down-down. Everyone gets exactly one up and one down, every single time.
Hypothesis: glove theory
Maybe each qubit is like one glove from a pair, handed out at random. You get a left or a right, the other person gets the opposite, and each of you has a 50/50 chance either way. It fits, for now.
Exercise 4 · Rotate one, then measure
- 1Run the mystery procedure.
- 2Rotate one Qubi 180 degrees and measure both.
Discovery
Now, instead of being opposite, they match. The glove theory just cracked.
Exercise 5 · Rotate both 90 degrees
- 1Run the mystery procedure.
- 2Rotate both Qubis 90 degrees the same way and measure them.
Discovery
Still never up-up or down-down. At this point there’s no way to assign each qubit a hidden position on its own Bloch sphere that explains what everyone is seeing.
The reveal: the Singlet state
These qubits are entangled, and together they form a single two-qubit state called the Singlet state. The single-qubit rules from Part 1 simply don’t apply: the pair’s measurement probabilities can’t be split into two independent qubits. The Singlet is just one kind of entanglement; others behave differently, but all share that impossibility.
Can we use this to communicate?
Measuring one qubit affects the other, so can we send a message with it? Students split up, each half taking one qubit of the pair, and try to invent a protocol to communicate a single yes or no.
Diving deeper · Why it can’t signal
- 1Matching thumb and finger to opposite poles, students reason through what qubit A does when qubit B is measured, gated, or left alone.
- 2In every case, A still measures 0 half the time and 1 half the time, no matter what happens to B.
- 3Alice on the Moon and Bob on Mars: nothing Bob does to his qubit changes Alice’s odds, so no message can get through.
Discovery
It’s impossible to signal with entanglement. That’s the big takeaway, and a direct correction to the common misconception that entanglement lets you transmit information faster than light.
If time allows
Create your own entanglement
The CX (CNOT) gate
CX is a two-qubit gate with a control and a target. If the control qubit is 0, nothing happens to the target. If the control is 1, the target flips, just like an X gate. But if the control is in superposition, both 0-like and 1-like at once, the target both flips and doesn’t, in a way that depends on the control. Superposition spreads through the CX gate and becomes entanglement: students build the Singlet state themselves, from scratch.
From the workshop
Clips from the room: students measuring, tallying, experimenting, and hitting the moment entanglement stops making classical sense.
Founder & PI, QCaMP · Sandia National Labs
“It was really fun to see the team let students discover superposition, measurement, and entanglement without giving them the answer first. There was a lot of smiling and laughing and conversations at the different tables. Huge fan of the tool. Five stars!”
Want to run this workshop with your students?
We partner with educators to bring hands-on quantum lessons like this one into classrooms and camps. Get in touch to run a session.