About Project M 

Scientific purpose and scope 

Project M was a citizen‑science initiative run with UK secondary schools that generated an open collection of more than 650 calcium carbonate diffraction datasets, crystallised under a wide range of additives and conditions, with all associated fits and parameters included.

The methodology of the collection of the data is described in Project M: investigating the effect of additives on calcium carbonate crystallisation through a school citizen science program - CrystEngComm (RSC Publishing). Further practical details about setting up the project are available in Forming bonds between molecules and communities through Project M – Frontiers in Communication.  

Each record in this community comprises: 

• a raw data .xye file (where x axis is 2theta angle, y axis is corrected counts and e is errorfile) of an X-ray powder diffraction pattern collected at Diamond Light Source using beamline I11 and originally hosted at Diffraction Data for Project M . 

• metadata fields which capture key experimental variables (e.g. instrument and additive information) and fitted data (fits and results) - originally hosted at Project M AI For Science Models All Data

This dataset forms part of the PSDI “AI for Science” sub project (“Provision of ‘AI ready’ data: prototyping data pipelines and repositories”, grant APP84520, award UKRI2697, opportunity OPP1033: EPSRC AI for Science) and has been selected and prepared as an example of AI ready data suitable for training AI tools and systems.

Any feedback, suggestions or contributions can be provided to support@psdi.ac.uk. Specifically, feedback regarding the use this dataset by AI tools and systems would be particularly welcome.