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  News and Notes from the October 23, 2007 SPS meeting


Here are the notes from October 23rd!


SPS calendar.  There is a new contest for science demo toys.  All you
need to do is find the five SPS partnerships (in yellow) and follow the
directions at the bottom of the calendar.


Zone 9 meeting.  There are some openings for the Zone 9 meeting this
Friday at Marquette University in Milwaukee.  If you are interested in
going let Dr. B know ASAP!!!


Intramural volleyball.  Sign up by tonight!  We are needing enough people
to actually have a team, and someone who can actually attend the captain's
meeting Wednesday night at 7.  The season will run from October 29th to
December 13th.


New Richmond HS.  Several people volunteered, but let Dr. B know if you
are still interested in helping out.  They will be coming to see us
Tuesday, October 30th, and the show will run from 1:10ish to 1:50ish with
a range of 22-25 students.


Big Brothers Big Sisters.  They will be visiting us sometime this
semester or next on a Wednesday and Thursday.  Keep it in the back of your
minds.


Membership Drive.  Renew or Join by the end of October to be eligible for
phantastic prizes!  We are up to 9 new members and 13 renewals.  The
drawing will be the first meeting in November, and no, you do not need to
be present to win.


Shirt design.  The winner by a 9 vote landslide was 'I attract everything
in the Universe.'  Should we offer again the 'Shift Happens' sweatshirt? 
More info about these will be coming soon.


Fall competition.  It looks like we're going to go with solid fuel
rockets.  There was talk of buying kits to assemble the rockets so that
everyone would have the same stuff to start with and for simplicity of
assembling group kits, but that may result in lots of the same rocket. 
Chris F and Dr. B had plans to do some research for different ideas to try
and find out the average cost per rocket to participate.


Fun event.  Working on getting some plans made to visit the Bakken
Museum.  Perhaps we will wait until after November 3rd for those studying
for the GRE.


Pre-engineering update.  Nobody showed up for the pond clean-up
extravaganza, so the date has been pushed back one week to next Monday,
October 29th.  They plan to meet in the seminar room at 5:30 with intent
of leaving by 5:45.  If there is enough interest they may stop for dinner
throughout the night also.  A sign-up sheet was passed around at the
meeting for people who are willing to go.  They also have expressed
interest in finding out other departments/clubs that would benefit from
the purchase of a 3-D printer, like the ones they had at the Medical
Device Conference that we attended last year.  The downfall is the $19,000
price tag for the average printer.


Trebuchet update.  The weather is looking much better this week for
updating the trebuchet.  Dr. B will send out an email to those who have
expressed interest in helping out with it.  If  you are interested but
haven't told anybody yet, talk to Dr. B.


Demo.  Our demo this week was the bending wall.  Using a laser and a
pivoting mirror you can show the work done when you push on a wall.  This
demo can be used to explain where the normal force for the wall comes from
if you treat the wall as a spring.


Notes taken by Jen

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