.......EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITES.......

Media

Martin Houde wrote an article on the CSO and  the astronomical significance of its research on Giant Molecular Clouds for the May 4, 2001 edition of the Hilo Tribune Herald.

Material being added to the history of radio astronomy

Walter Steiger is collecting pictures from the development of the CSO and is generating a history of the CSO.  The photos are being digitized so they can be used as raw material for web based presentations, or adapted to poster based presentations.  This display material will do much toward showing the public what goes into the development of a large scientific instrument such as the Leighton Telescope.   Target audiences will include school children, college students, and the general public. (See below in Educational Materials for finished product)

June 8Summer 2003 Summer intern was Kimo Unten, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, in the Civil Engineering program. Kimo designed the automated 3rd mirror cell mover system which is currently in use. Kimo graduated from UT in 2004 and temporarily worked as a Health Physicist for the Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory at UT until he found a position as a Civil Engineer with a firm in Honolulu.

    















June 22, 2003:  Stars Over Mauna Kea, a tabloid newspaper insert was prepared by the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, containing articles prepared by every observatory on Mauna Kea, including one on CSO. (Extra copies available on request).
January - May, 2003:  CSO staff member taught Physics 331 (Junior Level Optics) at the University of Hawaii, Hilo.

, 2003: A Hilo High School science class visited CSO and received a presentation by Senior Electronics Engineer Melanie Leong on the history of Radio Astronomy which included a demonstration of radio noise produced by an electrical spark.

Summer Internships.
Every summer CSO provides opportunities for work experience to undergraduate students.
During the summer of 2004 two students were employed:

Riley Ceria, whose home is here in Hilo, will be a senior electrical engineering student this fall at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is specializing in Electro-physics and has already had considerable experience in designing and constructing robots. Riley has found that a lot of what goes on in an observatory is related to engineering. His skills in electronics and computers have been put to work in updating many engineering drawings from paper to digital format. He has also designed and constructed an electronic device for providing a digital output for an anemometer which is located at the summit observatory. Riley says he has enjoyed working here a lot and now has a better idea of career opportunities.
    


Riley works on circuit with Pat Nelson (CSO Technical Staff)






...and
; Meaghan Paceley is a student at Caltech, entering her sophomore year and majoring in astrophysics. After taking a course from Professor Phillips, CSO Director, she inquired about a possible summer job at CSO in Hilo. That worked out and she has been kept very busy on various assignments. Her major assignment was to work with Dr. Martin Houde assisting with data analysis on his studies of magnetic fields in interstellar clouds. Meagan also spent a week at the summit observatory assisting astronomer Dr. Mary Gerin from France. She is also helping with the data analysis. Finally, she has been asked to work on the telescope-observer interface programming which is in need of some improvement. Meagan says she is learning a lot of new things and working hard but just loving it!

June - September 2005: Summer Internships. This summer our intern is Sarah Landstreet of Ontario, Canada. Sarah will be a senior this fall at McGill University in Montreal, majoring in mechanical engineering. Her assignment this summer is to develop a computer design of the telescope, and to design a new support system for the observatory crane.

Sarah Landstreet

Robotics
The teaching of robotics at the High School level has become quite popular thoughout the country as a means to stimulate interest in science and engineering. CSO electronics engineer Riley Ceria, who himself leaarned about robotics at Waiakea High School, has been volunteering his time teaching robotics at Waiakea High School during 2006-7. The school organized a team to compete in national events and this year (2007) placed very high in the competition. A photo of the team and its robot is shown here:

Educational Materials

A discussion of how daylight, twilight, and nighttime vary throughout the year and with the latitude of the observer is presented in an article entitled NIGHT and DAY. This article can also be accessed in pdf format.

A Brief History of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory is now available. Comments, including additions and corrections, will be much appreciated. Please address them to author .