Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) SPIE Student Chapter Annual Report for 2013

Transcription

1 Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) SPIE Student Chapter Annual Report for 2013 Introduction AFIT SPIE Student Chapter AFIT/ENP Bldg. 640, Attn: Michael Marciniak 2950 Hobson Way Wright-Patterson AFB, OH In this annual chapter report, we highlight the accomplishments that our chapter made over the past year. All in all, our chapter continues to thrive with a focus on outreach. Members Leadership Our current chapter officials for were elected on 1 May 2014 and are listed below: Samuel Butler, samuel.butler@afit.edu, President (ID: ) Woody Miller, wooddy.miller@afit.edu, Vice President (ID: ) Noah Van Zandt, noah.vanzandt@afit.edu, Treasurer (ID: ) Matthew Gridley, matthew.gridley@afit.edu, Secretary (ID: ) Our current committee chairs for are listed below along with the members for each committee: Publicity committee o Chairman: Michael Benson o Member: Michael Steinbock Membership committee o Chairman: Theodore Josue o Member: Michael Steinbock Programs Committee o Chairman: Wooddy Miller (Vice President) o Member: Michael Steinbock Our chapter officials were elected on 29 April 2013 and are listed below: Tristan Latchu, tristan.latchu@afit.edu, President (ID: not available) Ryan Dowden, ryan.dowden@afit.edu, Vice President (ID: not available) Matthew Bean, matthew.bean@afit.edu, Treasurer (ID: not available) Noah Van Zandt, noah.vanzandt@afit.edu, Secretary (ID: ) Our committee chairs for are listed below along with the members for each committee: Publicity committee o Chairman: Michael Steinbock

2 o Member: Mark Spencer Membership committee o Chairman: Mark Spencer o Member: Michael Steinbock Programs Committee o Chairman: Ryan Dowden (Vice President) o Member: Mark Spencer o Member: Michael Steinbock Throughout 2013, we had four quarterly meetings and one graduation party. Figure 1 below shows attendees at our graduation party, held in March of These meetings helped us to recruit new chapter members and build camaraderie amongst existing chapter members. All four quarterly meetings and the graduation party served food and beverages with high attendance. Figure 1: Group picture from our graduation party with both students and faculty (March 2013). Current members As of 8 May 2014, our chapter has 17 Student Members and nine Alumni Members. All members and their membership expiration/graduation dates are listed in the Table 1 below. The AFIT SPIE Student Chapter maintains two chapter advisers, one military faculty member for continuity and one civilian faculty member for longevity. Our military advisor is Dr. Milo Hyde and our civilian advisor is Dr. Michael Marciniak. Both advisors are regular members of SPIE and have written consent from their respective department heads (as required by the chapter constitution). The AFIT SPIE student chapter also elicits the participation of AFIT faculty members who are current members of SPIE or show desire in becoming members of SPIE. For example, a few faculty members have made it a point to attend chapter meetings, such as Dr. Jason Schmidt, Dr. James Louthain, Dr. Michael Pochet, and Dr. Derrick Langley. Their continued involvement increases chapter support and longevity.

3 Table 1: Current members of the AFIT SPIE Student Chapter. Student Members: Membership Expiration Date Sean Baumann 20 February 2015 Matthew Bean 28 April 2015 Michael Benson 9 May 2015 Samuel Butler 11 April 2015 Adrian Catarius 30 April 2015 Ben Eschal 7 May 2015 Matthew Gridley 6 May 2015 Tyler Hardy 1 April 2015 Theodore Josue 30 April 2015 Wooddy Miller 6 May 2015 Sarah Myers 28 February 2015 Jason Pennington 9 May 2014 Mark Spencer Lifetime Member Michael Steinbock 6 October 2014 Rick Sweetnich 8 December 2014 Noah Van Zandt 20 February 2014 Robert Vincent 12 April 2015 Alumni Members: Graduation Date Christopher Lenyk May 2009 Michael Marciniak September 1995 Salvatore Cusumano (not available) Edward Hurd March 2011 Jason Tellez September 2011 Jason Vap September 2012 James Harris (not available) Glenn Perram Aug 1966 Seth Swift September 2015 Chapter Activities Community Outreach This year, we continued to showcase our chapter s legacy outreach effort, the Laser Propagation Demonstration (LPD), to a wide range of students in a variety of locations. Figures 2-5 below show the LPD in action at these events. Most notably, we setup the LPD at the 2013 Optics Outreach Games and received a fourth place honorable mention. This was our third year in a row to place in the Optics Outreach Olympics/Games, and we greatly appreciate SPIE s continued support of the LPD. We plan to display the LPD in the 2014 Optics Outreach Games sporting new transportation cases, along with a new optics and photonics demonstration which is currently under construction.

4 (a) (b) Figure 2: The LPD as part of the AFIT Booth at TechFest in Dayton, Ohio (March 2013). In (a), a non-chapter member highlights the use of lasers in military applications, and in (b), Mark Spencer explains how lenses work. Over 1000 students, grades pre K-12, attended this weekend-long event at Sinclair Community College which takes place annually.

5 (a) (b) Figure 3: The LPD as part of the Boys 2 Men Program at the Rosa Parks Middle School in Dayton, Ohio (May 2013). In (a), Mark Spencer, Ryan Dowden, and Scott Pierce relate optics and photonics principles to the human eye, and in (b), they use the LPD to demonstrate those principles. This outreach effort consisted of two 30 minute sessions with approximately 10 students in each session.

6 (a) (b) Figure 4: The LPD as part of the AFIT booth at the 51 st National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium in Dayton, Ohio (May 2013). In (a), Ryan Dowden discusses research with students, and in (b), Noah Van Zandt stands proudly behind the LPD. This outreach effort consisted of 230 high-school students and approximately 100 adult leaders from all around the United States and Europe.

7 (a) (b) Figure 5: The LPD as part of the 2013 Optics Outreach Games at SPIE Optics + Photonics in San Diego, California (August 2013). In (a), Tristan Latchu (left) discusses the LPD s design, and in (b), we proudly display the LPD which was awarded a fourth place honorable mention with approximately 15 International participants in attendance. This outreach effort consisted of over 100 optics and photonics experts from all around the world.

8 Our chapter also participated in outreach events which did not include the LPD. For example, we participated in the 2013 State Science Day as Judges for the SPIE Optics and Photonics Science Fair Award. This event took place at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Our chapter supplied five judges: Michael Steinbock, Ryan Dowden, Jason Schmidt, James Louthain, and Mark Spencer, as seen from left to right in Figure 6 below. Each judge visited approximately 5 different student presenters, grades After, we awarded first, second, and third place prizes to the top science fair projects with research in optics and photonics. It was a great experience and a really close race between the finalists. We look forward to continuing our participation in this event in the years to come. Figure 6: Judges for the SPIE Optics and Photonics Science Fair Award (May 2013). Chapter members also helped man the AFIT Booth as part of SpaceFest in Dayton, Ohio. This was a daylong event held at the US Air Force Museum with over 500 students in attendance, grades pre K-12. For this outreach effort, chapter members helped students make model solar sails. To do so, students taped plastic wrap to balloons (the kind used to make balloon animals). The students tested their various designs by placing their model solar sails in front of an electric fan which acted as an energy source the wind from the electric fan served to propel their model solar sails just like photons would from a distant sun or star in outer space. Chapter members also setup print outs of the planets within our solar system to help the students gauge distance flown. Figure 7 below shows this outreach effort in action. Invited Dr. James Breckenridge as a Visiting Lecturer Our chapter invited SPIE Fellow, Dr. James Breckenridge, to speak as a Visiting Lecturer. His talk would have been part of the Physics Seminar Series at AFIT; however, due to setbacks in the federal government s budget, we had to cancel his talk and were unable to reschedule.

9 (a) (b) Figure 7: The AFIT Booth at SpaceFest in Dayton, Ohio (March 2013). In (a), a student tests his solar sail design, and in (b), a non-chapter member explains how solar sails work. Over 500 students, grades prek-12, attended this daylong event at US Air Force Museum which takes place annually.

10 Travel Grants As the chapter president, Tristan Latchu applied for and received a SPIE Student Chapter Travel Grant to attend the 2013 Student Chapter Leadership Workshop at Optics + Photonics in San Diego, California. According to Tristan, this was a fantastic experience! Tristan was joined by Mark Spencer, who received a $250 student travel grant to present two papers in the Unconventional Imaging and Wavefront Sensing session at Optics + Photonics. Mark also attended the Student Leadership Workshop for the fourth year in a row and designed our chapter s poster display at the Student Chapter Exhibition. It can be seen below in Figure 8. With that said, we greatly appreciate SPIE s continued support in the form of travel grants! The ability to network with other student chapter leaders and optics and photonics experts from all around the world continues to help our chapter members excel and gather new ideas for the road ahead. Figure 8: Our 2013 poster display at the Student Chapter Exhibition of Optics + Photonics in San Diego, California (August 2013). Tristan Latchu (right) stands with a fellow chapter president (left). Best Light-Based Master s Thesis Looking to raise chapter visibility, we had SPIE Fellow and Board Member, Dr. Michael Eismann, award the second annual Best Light Based Master s Thesis award. This year, we had three submissions from Master s thesis advisors at AFIT. PhD student members ranked these submissions based on application. The 2013 winner was Bryan Adomanis, as shown in Figure 9 below. An award was given to him during the AFIT-wide graduation awards ceremony. He received a commemorative plaque and a $50 check to sponsor a year of continued SPIE membership as an Early Career Member. We hope that this increased chapter visibility will serve as a source of motivation amongst the optics students and promote SPIE in positive way.

11 Figure 9: Dr. Michael Eismann (left) presenting the 2013 Best Light Based Master s Thesis award to Bryan Adomanis (right). This picture was taken during the AFIT-wide graduation awards ceremony (March 2013). Outreach Telescope Mark Spencer had the opportunity to design and teach a two-day workshop in astronomy to support the Air Force Research Laboratory and Georgia Tech Outreach Telescope. This two-day workshop taught 12 teachers, grades 3-8, how teach astronomy principles in their classrooms in a fun, hands-on way. Figure 10 below shows the participants in this special event. Day one was spent in the classroom covering the following topics. The solar system and scale The seasons and effective heating The moon s phases and eclipses Optics and telescopes Terrestrial and celestial coordinates Light and matter Hands-on activities with manuals accompanied each classroom topic covered. Day two was then spent demonstrating how to use the outreach telescope in its current format. The eventual goal is to have the ability for teachers to operate the telescope from their classrooms. This special event took place in Maui, Hawaii with the help of the Maui Economic Development Board. Mark would like to extend a special thanks to Dr. Jeremy Bos, an SPIE Alumni Member of Michigan Tech, for his help during this special event.

12 (a) (b) Figure 10: Participants in a two-day workshop in astronomy to support the Air Force Research Laboratory and Georgia Tech Outreach Telescope (November 2013). In (a), the participants learn how to use hand-held spectroscopes, and in (b), the participants stand proudly in front of the Outreach Telescope. This two-day workshop took place in Maui, Hawaii with the help of the Maui Economic Development Board.

13 Future Activities Moving on to the next year, our chapter has several ideas to increase involvement, relevance, and outreach. We highlight these ideas in bullet format below. We hope to increase the number of schools that we visit with the LPD. We hope to hold elections in the fall or winter as opposed to the spring to increase chapter continuity. We hope to construct robust carrying cases for the LPD to decrease travel costs and better protect our investment. We hope to design a separate demonstration project with new chapter members to increase chapter involvement and further promote outreach. Financial Information Our financial records through the end of the Calendar Year 2013 are shown below in Table 2. Summary Table 2: Financial records for the AFIT SPIE Student Chapter. Calendar Year Balance $ Outreach Events ($381.50) Recruiting Events ($282.22) Food & Supplies for Chapter Meetings ($438.93) 2013 SPIE Activity Grant $ Balance $ In closing, we feel like this has been a successful and productive year. We have several goals for the year to come, which will continue to grow chapter involvement, relevance, and outreach. From all of us here at the AFIT SPIE Student Chapter, thank you! Mark Spencer Founding President (November 2009) SPIE Student Chapter Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) 8 May 2014

14