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  News and Notes from the October 9, 2007 SPS meeting

Here are the notes from 10/9/07.  (We had sandwiches and chips in addition
to the usual cookies, as we had leftovers from the 3M trip.)

GRE.  Dr. Brad Caskey will be in CSH152 Wednesday, October 10th from
3-4:30pm to talk about the GRE.  He explains things very well, and will
have an example from the physics GRE...


Science Day.  The trebuchet needs a little tlc (staining/painting,
repairs, upgrades), and we need volunteers!  Let Dr. B know if you are
interested.  We have also decided it is about time to get a new van de
Graf since ours didn't like its new belt.  If you have any good pictures,
burn them to disk and give them to either Dr. B or Dr. McCann.


3M.  Our check has arrived!  We were invited back next year to have a
booth, but the opening slot has to be shared so other fun science demos
can be shown to the kiddies.  4est :) volunteered to eat some hot sauce to
see if the IR camera could detect the heat difference, but after his cold
water dribble it was too hard to tell.  Look for a pic on facebook.  Any
volunteers for a second go?  Ann screamed during the smashing of the bed
of nails, which was perfect to get the kids going, but we've decided that
next time a smaller block would be great.


Outreach Activities.  Big Brothers Big Sisters are interested in having
another demo day with us this year, but we are working on coordinating
time/days with them.  New Richmond wants to come and spend some time in
the planetarium, but they have too many kids to fit in it all at once, so
they were wondering if we could keep the extras entertained.  We had
enough volunteers so we are going to tell them green light go!  If you are
intersted in helping, it is going to be October 30th around 1pm.  One show
should last about half an hour.


Membership Drive.  Dr. B showed some more phabulous prizes at the
meeting, including a briefcase, some diffraction glasses, and more nasa
stuff.  We already have 7 new members and 5 renewals.  Do we have any
volunteers to promote the membership drive in the upper level classes or
in 161?  Talk to Dr. B if interested.


Fall Competition Ideas.  We had suggested at the meeting both solid fuel
and water rockets, paper airplanes, and CO2 cars.  We are thinking about
deciding what to do next week so we can actually have the competition this
fall.  Bring any other ideas with you to next week's meeting!


Shirt Designs.  We also talked about our annual t-shirt design, and here
are quotes from our ideas (look for the actual designs either in the
seminar room or in Dr. B's office).  We're thinking about voting on these
next week too!
  Map of the physics degree, including Advanced Lab Land and Calc2
  "it's all fun and games until someone breaks the law..."
  a brainwave graph of different majors
  "sps, making you feel stupid since 1974"
  "rocket scientist in training"
  "I attract everything in the universe..."
  Quantom physics of the beginning
  "one quark, two quark, red quark, blue quark"


Fun Event.  Ideas to maybe visit the Bakken Museum in Minneapolis.  Lee
said it was a good time and focuses mainly on electricity.  The
Minneapolis Science Museum might also be a good time.


Bunny Rabbit Ride.  It needs some help.  Mitch and Tom have decided to
come in and possibly make it fun and safe again.


The trebuchet also made a few launches, and I guess we had a tree branch
casualty...  several people are interested in doing some repairs and
refinishing on the treb.


Notes taken by Jen

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