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News and Notes from the September 11, 2007 SPS meeting
About 37 people packed the seminar room for the meeting - very cool! We'll
need to break out more cookies!
Craig Witte announced that there are many positions still open on Student
Senate, including many first year positions.
Ann Deml has been elected Associate Zone Councilor, representing our entire
zone (Wisconsin, Upper Michigan, northern Illinois and northern Indiana).
Since she will be on the National Council, she decided to resign as chapter
vice president. According to our by-laws, this means the advisor calls a
special election.
SPECIAL ELECTION NOTICE: if you are interested in being VP of our SPS
chapter, or if you know someone who would do a good job, submit a nomination
by signing up on the nominations clipboard in CSH 113 by NEXT MONDAY NOON.
Dr. B. will publish a ballot and put it in Room 113 by 8 am NEXT TUESDAY,
and will also send it out via the email list. Votes must be cast by noon,
we'll count'em up and announce the new VP at the meeting next week.
There was big disaster this summer - the big storage cabinets on the wall of
the Optics Lab FELL OFF THE WALL! Lots of equipment damaged, but hooray for
insurance! One result is we are getting a VERY cool new Infrared camera!!
Hopefully it will be in soon and we will spend a meeting learning how to use
it.
We have been invited to 3M to be the featured presenters for their Saturday
Science Show. This will be Saturday October 6. This is a show for kids of
3M employees, there are usually over 100 kids, plus their families, so it
will be one of the biggest crowds we have ever presented before. Plus, they
offered us $400 for expenses! We will have a one hour big show at 11 am.
We have a group going up to scout out the location this Thursday afternoon.
After that, there will be a bunch of tables set up for more one-on-one
stuff, we will have a table. Mike Lewandowski (UWRF alum who is a health
physicist at 3M and got us the invite) will have a table of radioactivity
demos, and he would love to have some of us help him out. He is willing to
come over to give a training session for anyone interested, probably earlier
that week. Stay tuned for more details!
Membership drive - we are the second biggest chapter in the nation. There
are a lot of benefits to national membership, talk to Dr. B. or go to the
national website http://spsnational.org BUT you can still participate in our
local chapter activities even if you do not join. (You just can't put it on
your resume, and you don't get all the cool benefits, like a free one-year
membership in one of the professional physics organizations like the
American Astronomical Society.) So everyone who joins or renews during the
months of September and October will be eligible for a drawing for phabulous
prizes! For example, one prize is a vintage scientific calculator from
about 1975 - it still works! Membership forms are strewn about in Room 113,
you can get one from Dr. B. or join on-line at the national website (just
tell Dr. B. so you get in the prize drawing!)
We no longer have the Physics Resource Room to study in. With the
continuing growth of UWRF, it is needed for faculty office space. The
physics faculty are working on setting aside time in Room 110 for a 'quiet'
study place, we might also get to use Room 114. Plus, our ace custodian is
working to get us more chairs and maybe another table for Room 113.
Exciting opportunity starting NEXT academic year. We have funding to bring
in two "teaching post-docs". These two people would each teach half-time,
and do research with some UWRF students half-time on the IceCube neutrino
project. At least one of them would come from one of the other countries in
the IceCube collaboration. After training a few UWRF students all year, the
following summer a few lucky students would get to go abroad with their
mentor to do research for a summer. Maybe Sweden or Germany or... That is
another reason why the Resource Room is being converted into office space
for TWO faculty. That will be an exciting opportunity, you'll hear more
about it next spring.
Cleaning out the Resource Room produced CARTS AND CARTS full of books. We
will keep the core 'best' books in Room 113, recycle those that are really
worthless, and offer the rest in a big book sale 'soon'. Anyone wanting to
help sort books, show up this Thursday about 10 am. (Jen, Chris, Zach,
Aaron, Dr. B. anyone else?) We'll schedule the sale at next week's
meeting.
Related topic: Textbook Services has some good books for sale very cheap:
the previous edition of the PHYS 161 text, the engineering Statics text and
more.
PICNIC NEXT WEEK ON WEDNESDAY! Please sign up on the clipboard in Room 114
(or email Dr. B.) We need a few people to help shop for food and supplies
next Tuesday afternoon. (Chuck and Dr. B. so far.) The picnic is FREE, but
y'all need to sign up so we buy enough food! Games? Bocce ball, frisbee
and ladder golf were all fairly enthusiastically recommended. If you have
equipment for any of those, bring'em along. If you don't know where the big
enclosed shelter is in Glen Park, there are maps posted in CSH 113 and on
the SPS bulletin board.
Report from the Girl Scout Jamboree this past July. We took our Science
show to St. Olaf College, put on two shows (each for about 30 to 35 Girl
Scouts and leaders.) It was very well received, a photo from our session
even made the big slideshow for the closing ceremony the next day. But
doing electrostatics demos in humid summer weather is not a good thing.
The Pre-Engineering Society is still working on finding a time to meet. The
Adopt-A-Pond program is in place, and that is one of the first items they
will be working on. They have the little pond by the McDonald's. Well, it
is sort of two ponds, a 'wet' pond with cattails and a 'dry' pond that is
sort of a flood plain thing. "It's a dry pond because its not wet."
We will be working on new shirt designs 'soon', so get your creative juices
flowing.
Instead of a demo, we showed the film loop from last year's Egg Crash
competition. The plan is to put it in the display case, alternating with
other slide shows or videos featuring 'life in the physics department.'
Reminder: the small fridge and the microwave are for student use. Don't
LEAVE food long term in the mini fridge, it is icky and we don't have space.
If there is more demand for fridge space, talk to Dr. B.
Minutes taken by Jen
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