University of Otago Student Chapter

Transcription

1 University of Otago Student Chapter 2014 Annual Report Prepared by Bianca Sawyer Elected Officers for Name Membership number President Bianca Sawyer Vice President Kris Roberts Secretary Callum Macdonald Treasurer Yin Hsien Fung Members List Bianca Sawyer Kris Roberts Hamish McDonald Yin Hsien Fung Callum Macdonald Xavier Fernandez Gonzalvo Matthew Reeves Fan Hong Levi Bourke Alan Kwok Lun Cheung Alexander Doronin (Alumni) Gavin King (Alumni) Chapter Activities for 2014 Website and Facebook page Ongoing This year we reinstated our chapter website (a joint page with our OSA student chapter) and created a Facebook page, which serves as a useful way to keep all of our members and other supporters updated on chapter news and events. The links for each of these are below:

2 Outreach Event for Undergraduate Students Joint SPIE/OSA pool night 19 th May 2014 We went to The Poolhouse, a local pool cafe and bar, for an evening of friendly competition. We started with some warm-up games, then had pizzas for dinner. This was followed by a round-robin competition, the winners receiving a box of chocolates each. There was a bar tab for the night which provided free non-alcoholic drinks and subsidised alcoholic drinks for the attendees. We had around 15 postgraduate students (OSA and/or SPIE members) and 15 undergraduate students attend the event. SPIE chapter funding of $150 was used towards the cost of dinner for all attendees, and the OSA chapter supplied the funding for hire of 8 pool tables for 4 hours and the bar tab. This event serves to give an opportunity for 2nd and 3rd year undergraduate students, some of whom will be the future chapter members and leaders, to network with postgraduate students by providing a relaxed environment in which to ask questions about our research and get to know the graduates in the chapters. They benefitted from seeing the ways in which we interact outside our usual work environment, in a relaxed setting. One student remarked "tonight I decided for sure that I will do an Honours degree next year" after she saw that there are great opportunities for socialization and support in the postgrad community. Additionally, this event serves to further reinforce the bond between our OSA chapter (established in 2009) and our newer SPIE chapter (established in 2012), so that cooperation on other events (for example student symposiums, outreach activities) can run more smoothly. The postgraduate and undergraduate students socializing and showing off their expertise in the field of 2D elastic collisions. SPIE Members AGM and Recruitment Dinner 22nd August 2014 A group of 12 chapter members and potential new members went to Little India, a local Indian Restaurant. We enjoyed a selection of starters to share and a main meal each. After dinner, the current and ex-chapter presidents

3 gave a short speech outlining the chapter activities over the last year, a range of opportunities coming up (eg. the IONS-KOALA conference and our optics outreach trip), and also explained the benefits of being an SPIE member (in terms of experiences such as outreach though our student chapter and conferences, and in terms of access to journals, scholarships etc.). Our new chapter officers for the year were officially welcomed and SPIE membership/renewal forms were handed out (due to low number of students at Otago, our SPIE and OSA student chapters are intertwined, and have the same chapter officers. Hence, the new officers had been elected earlier in the year at our OSA AGM). Our SPIE chapter put $150 toward the cost of the meal. Southland Educational Optics Outreach 4-5 th September 2014 Seven volunteers from the Otago Physics department visited pupils aged 8-12 years at six primary schools in the Southland region of New Zealand to present an optics outreach programme. We reached out to about 220 primary school kids and 10 teachers who wouldn t otherwise get exposure to this type of outreach due to their rural location, and in many cases do not have adequate resources for a varied scientific curriculum Our programme focused mainly on the "colours in white light" theme, and made use of most of the resources from the Optics Suitcase (provided by OSA). This was supplemented by other outreach resources belonging to the University. We split pupils into groups and each group rotated around several stations, set up with optics demonstrations and activities. At the end we had a short discussion about science, technology and university, letting pupils ask questions. Children got to learn about and experience a range of light and colour-related phenomena, in an exciting context outside of their usual classroom environment. There were interactive demonstrations and time to explore the concepts further. They got the chance to meet real scientists (us) and see that we are just normal people who are passionate about what we do. Some asked insightful questions about what inspired us to do science, and why we like it. It certainly seems that we made a positive impact and that our visit got a lot of young children thinking and talking about light and science. The teachers were given an info pack, which contained a flyer about our visit (to distribute to pupils, parents, or put up on the wall), a set of printouts outlining some of the activities in detail (so that they can understand the concepts if the pupils ask questions or they use the theme packets again), a letter about the International Year of Light (explaining what it is and encouraging them to get involved in some way), two International Year of Light Posters, and a printout of the International Year of Light info presentation (both taken from the official IYL2015 website). This was a joint activity with our OSA University of Otago Student Chapter, and we also collaborated with the wider physics department, borrowing additional resources and inviting along 3 undergraduate student volunteers. The trip expenses totaled to NZ $918 and were equally shared between the two chapters. This was used for accommodation, food and transport for the volunteers, and for additional outreach resources. A more comprehensive report on this event was written and is available on request (though I believe we did already send it to SPIE a few months ago). This activity was described in our funding request.

4 A series of photos from our outreach trip. Top left: Six of the volunteers after the final school visit, at Mararoa Primary. Top right: Fan talking to Mataura Primary pupils about diffraction, using Rainbow Peepholes to demonstrate the effect. Bottom left: East Gore Primary pupils exploring reflection and refraction using a set of light boxes. Bottom right: Bianca teaching Mataura Primary pupils about polarization, using a slinky as a prop. Planned Activities for the Future 2015 SPIE/OSA University of Otago Student Chapter Symposium 17 th February 2015 A student symposium provides a platform to share and discuss the various research activities going on around the physics department. We currently have few opportunities to present our work in a formal way to our peers and believe that this activity is highly beneficial to the student members to have the chance to present their research and practice their presentation skills in a supportive environment. A very successful student symposium was held in late 2013, and a 2014 symposium was planned. We made the decision to push the event back a few months, to 17 th February 2015, so that it could be a part of the Dodd-Walls Centre (DWC) for Photonic and Quantum Technology Symposium The DWC is a brand new Centre for

5 Research Excellence launching in NZ this year, which encompasses researchers from five NZ universities as well as partners from government, local businesses and overseas research institutions. The University of Otago is one of the key players in this new research network. By holding our student symposium during the larger DWC symposium, we will be able to have students from other New Zealand Universities attend, increasing the scope of the event. Planning for this one day event is well under way, and we have already received abstracts for 6 talks and 8 poster presentations from students at both Otago and Auckland Universities. This activity was described in our 2014 funding request. Outreach to Undergraduates Networking and Laser Tag May 2015 We believe that this is a very beneficial event, providing a rare opportunity for networking between the different levels of students in the Physics Department, and the SPIE and OSA chapter members. We plan to move away from pool this time and try a game of Undergraduates vs. postgraduates Laser Tag, followed by refreshments and a short presentation about SPIE and OSA. International Year of Light Outreach Expo Early July 2015 Because it is the International Year of Light, we have decided to stray away from our annual Optics Outreach Trip (though it will certainly be reinstated next year) and instead hold a 1-2 day International Year of Light Expo in July The expo will be centred on a Show Me Light! photo contest, targeted towards children ages The challenge will be to creatively illustrate a way that light or a light-based technology is important, in the form of a photo and short description. This will get them thinking about the myriad of ways that light is used all around us, and delve deeper into the how? and why? of these technologies. Entrants will gain valuable skills in creatively presenting basic scientific ideas. We will hold an exhibition where experts (us) will discuss the entries with the children. Prizes for the event will be items that will help the children further develop their curiosity, e.g. a telescope or home science kit. The event will be held on the Otago campus and open to the public (500+ turnout expected). There will also be a program of activities, demonstrations and talks running, which could include an educational laser light show, laser maze, make your own kaleidoscope/laser tutorials, physics lab tours, and interesting seminars by Otago physics students and staff. IONS KOALA 2014: Late November 2015 This year the Otago and Auckland OSA chapters are holding the IONS KOALA conference (Conference on Optics, Atoms and Laser Applications), a student-run conference held annually in Australasia. KOALA is attended by students at all levels (from senior undergraduate through to PhD) from New Zealand, Australia, and further

6 abroad. It covers a broad variety of topics within several fields of optics and photonics, including atom and quantum optics, spectroscopy, micro and nanofabrication, biomedical imaging, metrology, nonlinear optics and laser physics research. Provided we can secure funding, we plan to partner with them to help organize and run the event, which will be fantastic! SPIE Visiting Lecturer TBC We plan to make use of the SPIE visiting lecturer grant and invite a speaker from overseas. The topics that the students would like to hear more about are quantum optics, biophotonics and cold atoms experiments, so we will invite a lecturer who is experienced and knowledgeable in either one of these fields. We may tie the visiting lecturer in with either the IYL expo or the KOALA conference (both mentioned above). Financial Information Values quoted below are in New Zealand Dollars (NZ$) Opening Balance (1/3/2014) 13 Income: 2014 SPIE Activity Grant SPIE Outreach Grant 923 Expenses: Undergraduate Outreach Event (Joint SPIE and OSA pool night) Educational Outreach Member Recruitment Event (Dinner) Ending balance (1/3/2015) 744 We did not use all of our funding this year for two reasons. Firstly, our outreach trip came in significantly underbudget because of lack of volunteer availability for the project. We had planned to have 2-3 additional volunteers, which would have meant extra accommodation and transport expenses, but the timing of the event meant many people were too busy. Also, we only used one night s accommodation rather than two, due to having to shorten the length of our trip slightly to work around a volunteer s time constraints. Secondly, we decided to move our Student Symposium back to Feb 2015, for reasons outlined above. We will use the surplus funds toward this Student Symposium (coming up in 3 weeks), and put the remainder towards our IYL outreach expo. Due to the scale and reach of the proposed event, the costs involved will be significantly larger than our usual annual outreach trip, and so this money will be put to good use.