Las Campanas Remote Observatory: Remote Challenges and Solutions; Real Science Within Reach, Friday 4:30pm 

Howard Hedlund, Astro-Physics Inc., Rockford, IL

Operating a remote observatory presents many challenges and problems. Doing so in another hemisphere compounds these immensely. I will discuss how we found solutions to these challenges and provide some guidance for establishing a remote observatory. I will also briefly describe the equipment that we are using. I will then discuss how real, meaningful science is being done with our system. You don’t need meter-plus class telescopes or multi-million dollar budgets to produce publishable results.

The State of ‘Beyond the First Year’ Physics Labs and the Resources to Support Them, Friday, 5:15 pm
Lowell McCann, Ph. D., University of Wisconsin – River Falls

Undergraduate physics laboratory experiences after the introductory sequence are not as common nor as uniform as faculty may believe. I will discuss what the Advanced Laboratory Physics Association (ALPhA) has learned about the state of these courses around the nation and the resources that exist to support faculty and staff who teach them.

Building Instruments of Discovery, Friday, 7:45 pm
Sarah Tuttle, Ph. D., University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Astronomical instrumentation creates the tools that we use to push at the edges of our knowledge of the universe. I will talk about several projects I’ve been involved with building, including HETDEX - a replicated spectrograph to measure dark energy, and FIREBall - a balloon experiment hunting for the intergalactic medium. I will also talk about how we can involve students in this experimental work from high school students through graduate students.

Is the pipeline leaking? White women and other minoritized scientists in Astronomy, Saturday, 8:15 am
Sarah Tuttle, Ph. D., University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Inclusion and diversity are now decades conversations in the sciences. As an organizer of the recent “Women in Astronomy IV” meeting, I’ll give a review of the meeting, talk about some of our actions moving forward, and tie in ways we can ground our teaching to support minoritized students. I will discuss briefly how our framing around “STEM” and “filling the pipeline” might be having the opposite effect of our intentions. 

Science and Social Media: One Physicist’s Experience, Saturday, 1:15 pm
Robert McNees, Ph. D., Loyola University, Chicago

Social media presents new opportunities for scientists to communicate their work to the public, but like any new form of media it comes with a unique set of risks and challenges. In this talk I will discuss my (occasionally rocky) attempts at using Twitter as a platform for sharing science with a diverse audience. I will analyze some of my successes, post-mortem a few of my failures, and share lessons that I learned the hard way. If time permits, I will give a brief introduction to some of my research on quantum gravity and discuss how I tell (hopefully) interesting stories about that work in 140 character bursts. 

Developed by Mats Selen and the PER group at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the IOLab is a wireless data acquisition system which interfaces with a PC/Mac using a USB dongle from up to 100 ft away. It is small (3 cm x 7.5 cm x 13 cm) and light (less than 200 g), which makes it highly portable.

The IOLab contains more than twenty sensors or inputs, including a 3D accelerometer, a 3D magnetometer, a 3D gyroscope, wheels which record position, velocity, and acceleration, a force probe, and both analog and digital inputs. Data can be analyzed in the IOLab program itself, or can be output to a spreadsheet or other software.

Some of the many applications of the IOLab are measuring force, acceleration, velocity, and displacement in mechanics labs, measuring voltage drop, current, magnetic field in EM labs, and measuring light and sound in wave labs.

In the first half of the workshop, participants will work in groups checking out activities in mechanics, EM, and light. In the second half, participants will get a chance to follow their curiosity and explore the many possibilities that the IOLab offers. Participants should bring a computer so they can work with the IOLab on their own computer.

For more information see the IOLab channel on YouTube and the IOLab website.