Thursday, December 27, 2007 - Gotta Get Away for Awhile
Like the Cecilio and Kapono song, I've got to get away for awhile to ease my head (everybody knows thats the way to do it). We've survived another Christmas and are working our way out of 2007, which was a very good year for the IfA Science Education and Public Outreach office in Hilo. We've had a good lineup of speakers for our AstroTalk public lecture series, and have begun work on booking an exciting list of astronomers for 2008 (check out our AstroTalk Archive page for more details). We'll be working a lot closer with a lot more organizations like amateur astronomy clubs and other observatories - particularly with the development of a cohesive set of events and activities for the 2009 International Year of Astronomy. But today, my son Kaipo and I will be flying over to Oahu to spend time with his grandparents and relatives while I get some R&R ... Part of the plan calls for visits to the beach for swimming, diving and standup paddleboarding (with a friend Kurt's board - I'm bringing my 2-piece carbon fiber paddle), to Hawaiian Waters Adventure Park for some slippin' and slidin' fun, maybe to Bishop Museum and the Windward Community College Imaginarium. We'll be back in Hilo for New Year's eve, but until then, Kaipo and I will be cruisin' the city and the country (its been a while since we enjoyed a Matsumoto store shave ice).
Monday, December 24, 2007 - Merry Christmas!
Another year has flown by us and Christmas is upon us once again. We have had a great year in astronomy outreach on the Big Island of Hawaii, and look forward to even more community engagement in 2008. I just want to take this time to thank all of the individuals and organizations who have worked with us. We couldn't ask for more ... well, maybe good weather (its been snowy, windy and rainy the past couple of weeks). Merry Christmas to all!
Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - Reflector Magazine Article
I just received my December issue of Reflector, the magazine of the Astronomical League. In it, gracing the center spread is an article on the Astronomy Day events that took place around the world that received awards. The AstroDay Institute was the recipient of the prestigious Astronomy Day of the Year award, beating out events from all fifty states and 21 countries. Although the Astronomical Society of Iran organized the world's largest Astronomy Day event with 53 cities and over 40,000 people at the main event in Tehran, our AstroDay took first prize. We came nowhere near those numbers but have something they don't: the world's largest astronomical observatory on the top of Mauna Kea (and the astronomers and staff who work there). I think a big part of AstroDay is bringing the science from the top of Mauna Kea down to the people, by sharing the research that is conducted through interactive exhibits hosted by the observatories. Cutting-edge astronomy is taking place right in our back year here on Hawaii island, and to have the scientists and staff on hand to help explain their research adds value to our program. The outreach at all of the observatories has also stepped up over the years to engage more people through hands-on experiential booths a our event. I am so very proud of the work that all of the outreach people, scientists and staff have put into outreach activities during AstroDay, as well as other events in our communities throughout the year. The rampup of outreach over the years, where once there was none is an incredible story in and of itself - kudos to Mauna Kea observatories and the people who help communicate astronomy to the public!
Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - AstroFest Presentation
So David, Janice Harvey of Gemini, Inge Heyer of Joint Astronomy Centre, Greg Wirth of Keck Observatory and I drove over to a Department of Education West Hawaii Island Principal's meeting at Konawaena High School in order to give a presentation. After the presentation, we drove back into Waimea and had lunch at the Tako Taco eatery before heading back into Hilo.
Monday, December 17, 2007 - Video Productions
While I am busy preparing a custom Keynote (Powerpoint on steroids) presentation for an important presentation to Kona-Kohala complex principals tomorrow, Kenyan is joined by Callie - each of whom are working on their respective projects. Callie is working on her Pan-STARRS Gigapixel camera video for Nick Kaiser, and Kenyan is getting up to speed by working on developing a January Eye-Kea segment for the Living in Paradise cable access program. Kenyan will be using footage taken at a previous Onizuka Science Day for a promotional episode that will air next January, just before the event is to take place. He has taken the initiative to jump start our Eye-Key program after a brief hiatus due to a full plate of activities the past several months. He seems enthusiastic about learning the craft and I am encouraging him to learn as much as he can. Meanwhile Les Rubenfeld, Director of the Center for Initiatives in Pre-College Education at the Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute is in town for the winter. Les stopped by to visit and to use our scanner to digitize some photographs and to talk story with me and my staff. We are looking to identify what we will be doing over the summer of 2008 with respect to robotics camps - it appears that Hilo will have a number of camps offering one and two week sessions for kids ages 9-13. This is great news for our community and I am happy that Hilo High School will be running one of them. Of course, I need to analyze the marketplace to see if there is a need for our program to return.
Friday, December 14, 2007 - Alex Filippenko's 4th Time
There are those who are great holders of knowledge, others who are great orators (who may or may not know of what they speak with deep understanding). It is rare to find someone who is both knowledgeable and adept at communicating that knowledge to the public in terms that are meaningful and comprehensible to them. I'd have to put Alex Filippenko in this short-listed group. Tonight Alex returned to Hilo after an observational run at the Keck Observatory, over the Saddle Road and through a torrid rain storm. Although he was suffering from a head cold, Alex raptured the audience with his presentation on supernovae with enthusiasm and passion. You really get the sense that Alex loves what he is doing, as he settled in to give his fourth presentation in Hilo. If you missed any one of his AstroTalks, you blew it. But, if you wanted a second chance with tonight's presentation, you are in luck. We have podcasted his presentation and posted it on Alex's AstroTalk web page for your convenience. We'll let it slide this time, but try to make it for our AstroTalks next year, as we are developing quite a lineup of noted astronomers.
Thursday, December 13, 2007 - IfA Outreach Organization
Today, we're working on developing more cohesiveness in our Institute for Astronomy outreach activities. The first step is to create an email listserv that links all of the Outreach Committee members together. I had done this earlier with a private listserv which allowed me to disseminate information out, but no one else could access it. Next is to establish a schedule of IfA Outreach Committee meetings for 2008. Our standing meeting schedule this year has been the second Wednesday of each month at 1:00 pm. Next year, the IfA Executive Committee meets on alternate Wednesdays at 1:30, so it periodically conflicts with our meetings. We resolve this by bumping our meetings back a week, so they occur on the third Wednesday on conflicting months, second Wednesday otherwise. Using the Calcium calendar software, we configure it to send out email announcements of our meetings a day and 2 hours in advance to committee members automatically. I just need to add a proposed agenda to the calendar at some point before the meeting. Next up, we compiled a list of known outreach activities that will take place on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island and created entries in the calendar for them, color-coded by island. We are now looking at the capability of the Calcium calendar software to send out email announcements of these activities to recipients outside of the IfA (ie. general public, AstroTalk aficionados, teachers, etc). If we are able to automate this process, it will drastically simplify our work to promote and publicize each event. Well, I have to get back to work so I'll see you back here soon ...
Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - County Grants, Meeting
We have been working with the University of Hawaii at Hilo Conference Center to submit the last bit of paperwork for our event proposals that have been selected for funding by the Hawaii County Department of Research and Development. We have received contracts for our AstroDay Festival and Onizuka Science Day events, which we signed and notarized. We are also collecting letters of support from our partners and event sponsors for the grant, and with any luck we'll be able to execute the contract by the beginning of next year (which is just in the nick time, as Onizuka Science Day takes place on the third week of that month). Then its off to an IfA Outreach Committee meeting, in which we are joined by our brethren in Maui and Oahu via Polycom. The meetings are a useful way of sharing information and ideas across three islands. We often don't otherwise know of each others' exploits in the educational outreach field.
Monday, December 10, 2007 - Christmas Card Distribution
We managed to hack out a Christmas card for 2007 over the weekend and today, I am mailing out and hand delivering them to our friends and supporters. This year, the Fujihara family is hanging out around a planetary nebula, NGC3132, the Southern Ring Nebula. We used Photoshop to composite an Astronomy Picture of the Day image and those of terrestrial humanoid life forms to form the 2008 (aw shucks, I may have just inadvertently shattered the fantasy for some). Previous Christmas card images featured settings on planet Saturn, Mars, and the summit of Mauna Kea. If you look at the chronological progression of our Christmas card settings, you could say that we are traveling further and further away from Earth, but those who know me know its simply a matter of me getting more and more spaced over time.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007 - RoboFest Debriefing
We held a RoboFest Debriefing and 2008 Planning meeting today at the IfA, with about ten in attendance. The purpose of the meeting was to review how our second annual event transpired: what worked, what didn't, things that needed improvement, and other impressions of the day. Overall, all thought the event went well and that RoboFest maintained its unique identity in providing access to robotics competitions to Hawaii Island schools and community groups. Some areas for improvement included making the event friendlier toward the spectators in the bleachers, as the competition playing fields were surrounded by team members, mentors and public. One thought was to place stanchions in a trapezoid configuration in front of the playing fields to keep people on the ground floor from obscuring the view of those seated above. Another was to have a closed circuit television feed to one or more large screen televisions or projection monitors (something a bit more complicated than putting up stanchions). The group also discussed the challenges and if we should make any of them standing or to use a staggered rotation system. In the rotation system, RoboFest would establish challenges that would run for two or more years, with alternate years introducing new ones, while discontinuing those the old ones. This strategy would permit teams to design and build for the first year, compete, then refine designs and (hopefully) build a better bot for the second year. I think this would more closely model engineering in the real world (in other robotics competitions, the challenge is used only once, and all robots built for that challenge are discarded and never revisited for improvements to design, hardware or software). We also believe that some competitions could be standing, as the concepts behind them are fundamental to robotics in general: eg. line following. Finally, a discussion was held on whether to include a FIRST Lego League (FLL) District competition in RoboFest for 2008. The popularity and interest in this league is growing substantially and is necessitating district events on neighbor islands. Since the FLL Regional is held in Oahu in early December, RoboFest seems a logical event to host the competition because it takes place in November. However, many voiced concern over maintaining RoboFest's identity and purpose, which may not be possible within the framework of embedding an FLL event within it. Several high school teachers have indicated that they would volunteer to coordinate the logistics of the event, and since they have helped us with RoboFest, I am inclined to return the favor in a feasible way. One solution may be to develop a robotics weekend with RoboFest on Saturday and the FLL district competition on Sunday. My outreach assistant didn't relish the thought of extending our event to a second day, but with proper planning and the support and assistance of the community we may just be crazy enough to pursue this.
Monday, December 3, 2007 - Working with UH Hilo
I had a number of meetings today with University of Hawaii at Hilo (UHH) faculty and programming staff. The morning found me in the UHH Center for Global Education & Exchange with its Director Todd Shumway, and Carolina Lam, Education Abroad coordinator. The discussion at hand was the International Education Week for 2008, which will take place November 17-21 next year. We were able to work with Carolina last month by folding in Bo Reipurth's AstroTalk on "Shooting Stars, Interplanetary Flotsam and the Birth of Planets" into their activities. This was serendipitous because we had already booked the talk on a date that fell within the International Education Week activities schedule. Dr Reipurth is from Denmark, and his research took him to many different countries, so that fulfilled the international aspect of the AstroTalk. Today, I offered a couple of ideas for activities and events that could fit within the framework for next year's event. Since 2009 will be the International Year of Astronomy, we are looking at developing an astronomy theme for their program next year. Several astronomers and staff from Mauna Kea Observatories are from other countries, so it should not be too difficult to recruit some to share their research, culture and cuisine with the UHH family and the general public. We have an early start on planning, so I am confident we can come up with a full featured array of things to do. Later this afternoon, I had a meeting with Nina Buchanan and faculty of the UHH Education Department. The topic of discussion was how to include robotics in an ED 314 course for students in their program next spring. We are looking at devoting a couple of class sessions for building awareness of robotics programs and their efficacy in disseminating science, technology, engineering and mathematics curricula to students in Kindergarten through high school (K-12). Being on the forefront of educating educators, Nina and her staff are very keen on the programs we run in the community, including Hilo Youth Robotics and RoboFest. Our idea is to devote two classroom sessions to robotics that will include a brief Powerpoint presentation (with plenty of video and animations), followed by a hands-on session with Lego Mindstorms and underwater ROV parts. I am really excited about this opportunity to work with Nina and UHH Education Department, and know that the ultimate benefactor in this alliance will be the students.