Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - Kea Trademarked
Okay, so the third time is definitely the charm! After two unsuccessful bids at securing a trademark on our "aikea" project, we have been approved for our project logo! Many thanks to Nohea Hiranaka of the State of Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs for her assistance in massaging my application for approval. The project is an initiative to promote a positive message based on good values: (eye) Kea, or "I Care" - because caring is cool. The message is voiced through Hawaii Island youngsters on our television show, speaking of activities they enjoy and are passionate about, in the hopes it may inspire others to do the same. Look for it on Hawaii Island cable channel 27 on "Live in Paradise" at 7:30 pm every night - our second installment begins October 1.
Monday, September 25, 2006 - VIS Volunteer Banquet
The weekend was the date, Hale Pohaku was the place, the volunteers were the people and our appreciation thereof was the reason for the 2006 VIS Volunteer Appreciation Banquet. The VIS, or Visitor Information Station at the 9200 foot level of Mauna Kea is supported in large part, by the volunteers to operate. Over 100,000 people come to visit the VIS each year, to learn about the mountain, to stop off on their way up to the summit, and to engage in the star gazing program. The volunteers come from many walks of life: from college students to staff of the observatories, to retirees. The end result is the same: dedicated individuals who donate time at the VIS to interface and communicate astronomy to the public. The VIS Volunteer Banquet is a small way for the Mauna Kea Support Services and Mauna Kea Observatories to acknowledge their appreciation for the people who help run the program. This year's program was coordinated by Patti Gomas, who did an excellent job at promoting and publicizing the event. This year's award recipients were Ben Berkey for Volunteer of the Year, Josh Williams for Most Dedicated Volunteer and Cliff Livermore for the Hoku Award. This year's program was dedicated to the memory of John Altonn, an extremely active volunteer who passed away last year.
Thursday, September 21, 2006 - Mercury Transit
So the next big thing to happen in Hawaii will be the Mercury Transit on November 8th, visible in its entirety (and optimally) from Hawaii. The event that places Mercury between the Earth and Sun, creating its silhouette against the disk of the Sun. We are planning to post images and time-lapse movies of the sun in Hydrogen-Alpha, Ca-K and white light from the summits of Haleakala on Maui and Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. We will also feature interviews with solar astrophysicists, amateur astronomers and students throughout the event. Right now, we are working on establishing a repository for the images we will accumulate on an FTP server, and making sure that our webserver will be able to handle the volume of traffic over the course of the day. Its an exciting project, but fraught with perils and challenges that only preparation can alleviate. Most importantly is the internet pipeline from the summits of two mountains to our FTP server - without which our webcast would be a flop. Then, I need to fill time with content - mostly in the form of video interviews with astronomers observing the event, so we will need to be able to stream this content on the web.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - Back in Business
I am back in the office after an entire day of travel from Baltimore. So the first thing I discover is that the tradition of the Hawaii County Fair has been upheld - the weather has been rainy since my departure. Although Baltimore was clear and sunny, it was good to be back in the Hilo rain. So, back in my office I have a ton of phone messages and some backlogged email that I need to attend to. Two things that are of particular importance are the Mercury Transit webcast in November and the RoboFest Hawaii event in December. Yikes! I'd better get busy.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - Leaving on a Jet Plane
...I don't know when I'll be back again." So waking up at 5:30 in the morning is nothing new, but getting ready for an 11-hour leg of travel is not exactly something I am looking forward to undertaking. Although I did not get an opportunity to see the night sky in Baltimore, waking early and watching the sunrise the other day was therapeutic in "grounding me" in this land away from home. Now, I prepare myself to go back home and I must say that I really miss Hilo, my family and friends there. I bring back with me some knowledge from the conference and rejuvenation from my alliances from around the country, and am so happy to have heard of their professional and personal endeavors.
Monday, September 18, 2006 - Last Day of the Conference
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific's (ASP) 118th Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland this weekend seemed to have whipped by in the blink of an eye. A lot of information through a number of lectures and workshops has permeated my gray matter to the point of saturation (my pixels are blooming). So the ASP Awards Banquet was held last night, where I got a chance to hang out with Bill Gieblink and Rachel Ross of the Las Cumbres Observatory (Bill is the telescope engineer for the Faulkes on Maui). It was great having an opportunity to talk story and get up to speed with Bill as we ordinarily only see each other over Polycom during our monthly outreach meetings. During the poster presentations, I brought Richard Crowe of imiloa Astronomy Center to meet Lucy Albert of the Space Telescope Science Institute regarding their ViewSpace product. I was talking with Lucy earlier yesterday about the possibility of helping the Imiloa Astronomy Center acquire a unit for their facility - hopefully the numbers and demographics will support it. After lunch, I walked on over to the Maryland Science Center for a special presentation in their planetarium on "Science Visualization on the Big Screen" by Frank Summers and John Stoke of the Space Telescope Science Institute. The presentation was awesome, but was terribly bummed to find out that the science center was closed on Mondays.
Sunday, September 17, 2006 - Engaging the EPO Community
The title of today's entry is also the title of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's 118th Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland this weekend. So far it has been quite a collection of science education and public outreach specialists from around the world who have gathered to share best practices and experiences in the field of communicating astronomy to the public. I've attended several interesting talks yesterday and today, including that of our Native American friends Nancy Maryboy and David Begay. The session was one of the most popular, as the room was filled to capacity to learn more about "Alternative Ways of Knowing". Throughout the conference, I have been running into folks who are interested in our November 8 Mercury Transit webcast. There is talk in the community about establishing a webcast for the event, so there may be an opportunity for us to collaborate with some "Big Boys". So I need to get my ducks in a row for this one - not just a simple local webfeed, but potentially an internet-clogging,web server-bogging, network bandwidth-hogging event. Yikes! Okay, time to talk with our IT department about this one (but hey, if we survived the NASA Deep Impact Hawaii event last year, we can certainly survive the upcoming Mercury Transit).
Friday, September 15, 2006 - Astronomical Conference
Jumped on a plane and took the redeye out of Honolulu to Baltimore via Chicago last night to attend the 118th Annual Meeting of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP). The theme for this year's event is "Engaging the EPO Community: Best Practices, New Approaches". I don't get an opportunity to attend many conferences because of budgetary constraints, but this will be a great opportunity to connect with some old friends and collaborators. The other reason I don't attend many conferences is that although I like to visit new places, I really don't care for traveling. I know you can't have one without the other, but there is something about being cooped up in a cylinder with a bunch of strangers for 8 hours that is less than appealing to me. I am really looking forward to this conference because there will be a decent Hawaii contingency, including Institute for Astronomy astronomer Paul Coleman and Las Cumbres Observatory telescope engineer Bill Giebink. Funny how it seems that the best times to touch bases with colleagues (sometimes within the same organization) is when on travel. Go figure! As I mentioned earlier, I look forward to meeting several of my friends and collaborators, a few of which will be presenting talks and posters at the conference. I didn't submit a paper or poster as I didn't have time to work on anything like that - I guess I spend most of my time implementing and planning, and little to none on analysis and reporting. With the addition of a new student intern next week and a replacement Community Outreach Assistant, I hope to carve out more time to finish a couple of my projects, which can ultimately produce some publications.
Thursday, September 14, 2006 - Robotics Outreach
Yesterday found me on the Kona side of the Big Island meeting with teachers and parents from various schools with regard to robotics in education. Noah Salzman and Nem Lau are starting a Botball club that meets during an Activity Period at Kealakehe High School. We loaned the club our Botball robotics kit and software, and were accompanied by Mr Tentacle himself: Steve Judd. Of course Steve brought a few of his creations including his mini-sumo robots and a neutered featherweight robot outfitted with an array of ultrasonic sensors. We next moved on to the Library to discuss the possibility of Steve giving short presentations and demonstrations on robotics to students on a semi-regular basis. Then, it was up to Larry Rice's class to learn a little about his Architecture/Engineering/Construction pathway that integrates robotics formally in the classroom. Larry has done a lot of work to incorporate math, physics and GLO (General Learner Outcomes) content into the classes he offers. He has also established a Big Island ROV Regional (BIRR) underwater robotics league that targets Hawaii island students. Larry and I agree that although the established "franchise" scholastic robotics leagues are a good experience for students, the associated burden of expense excludes the overwhelming majority from ever participating in them. It would be far better to establish something on-island at low cost that will be accessible to most schools and students. I pledged my support to Larry for his BIRR competition in April in Hilo and hope to gain his support for our RoboFest Hawaii event in December.
Sunday, September 10, 2006 - Maui News
We've received reports of sightings of Peter Ceravolo on the summit of Haleakala today by member of the Haleakala Amateur Astronomer Rob Ratkowski. Peter was on a tour of the Air Force AEOS Telescope along with other attendees of the 2006 AMOS Technical Conference on the island of Maui. Debra Ceravolo is of course accompanying Peter and will be presenting a talk on her work in supernova surveying at the Maui Community College Ka Lama Room 104A on Wednesday evening, September 13 at 7:00 pm. We're hoping that our friends on Maui will drop by and give Peter and Debra a big welcome. Meanwhile, up on the summit of Haleakala, the HAA boys have been busy at work upgrading their observing site. This weekend, they installed some safety tie-down chains to secure the observing isolation platform to the concrete foundation (the winds get fairly strong from time to time and flat isolation floors can turn into airfoils relatively quickly). Great job guys! Keep up the good work, and we hope to get to Maui to visit you folks soon.
Friday, September 8, 2006 - It Was a Good Day
We had a great AstroTalk tonight at the University of Hawaii at Hilo UCB 100 classroom, with about 70 attendees on hand to hear from Peter Ceravolo about his endeavors photographing Comet Hyakutake in 1996. After the talk, Peter, his wife Debra, Ralph Kraus and I decided on indulging in some sushi and beer at a local restaurant. So I was in good spirits when I returned home and learned that the State of Hawaii Board of Education fired Charter Schools Administrative Office Executive Director Jim Shon. Jim basically broke the mold and was able to support some cutting-edge educational initiatives and projects that worked, including our Hilo Youth Robotics summer enrichment program. It was a good day ...
Thursday, September 7, 2006 - Peter's on the Mountain
We had the distinct pleasure of welcoming our friend and upcoming AstroTalk presenter Peter Ceravolo and his wife Debra to our world yesterday. Peter is stopping over on the Big Island on his way to the AMOS conference on Maui next week, and we showed him around the Mauna Kea observatories, including the Subaru Telescope, Gemini Observatory and the UH 88" Telescope. We arranged some behind-the-scenes tours of those facilities, and thank our colleagues for their support and aloha. After the tours up top, we brought them down for dinner at Hale Pohaku before a star gazing session at the Visitor Information Station. Many thanks to Dan Birchall and Callie McNew for facilitating the excursion ... next stop: AstroTalk!
Wednesday, September 6, 2006 - Got NXT?
We received our shipment of Lego Mindstorms NXT robotics kits in the mail today, and opened one of the kits to investigate (play). The kits are more expensive than the older RCX kits and have considerably less construction parts that consist mostly of studless beams, link arms and pins. The NXT kits do contain a wider assortment of sensors including 2 touch sensors, one light sensor, a sound sensor and an ultrasonic proximity detector (no rotational sensor, as each motor has a built-in encoder). As part of the Lego Education NXT Pilot Program, we will be exploring the possibilities of this platform over the next few months.
Sunday, September 3, 2006 - SMART-1 Impact
The SMART-1 concluded its scientific mission to the moon by impacting the surface of the moon at 7:42 pm HST last night in the Lacus Excellentiae region of the moon. The event provided opportunities for scientists to observe the impact at several wavelengths of light including visible, near- and mid-infrared. Several telescopes were trained on the location of the impact including the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) on Mauna Kea. WIRCam at the prime focus of the CFHT captured the image on the right using an H2 narrow-band filter at 2122 nanometers with a 32 nanometer bandwidth. Visit our friends at CFHT website for more details.
Saturday, September 2, 2006 - (Eye) Kea Initiative
Aloha mai. We are undertaking an initiative to promote positive messages based on good values to our youngsters entitled "(Eye) Kea" - slang for "I Care". Too often, kids are inundated with less than positive messages from media and merchandising. So we at the AstroDay Institute have decided to embark on a mission to start a new movement based on the idea that caring is cool and to take responsibility for ones' self. Along with the graphic logo, we are producing a series of "Live in Paradise" video segments that will feature youngsters from around the Big Island who can speak passionately about the things they enjoy doing - swimming, diving, surfing, skateboarding, playing soccer, dancing hula, farming, paddling canoe, etc. The idea is that youth are not as receptive to communication from adults as they are from other kids. So, why not have the youngsters share by example things they enjoy doing or care about? Far better than having some old guy preaching on camera, huh? The hope is that some kids may become inspired to take part in some of these activities themselves. We have printed up tons of magnets, stickers, temporary tattoos and tee shirts that we will be giving away (to our on-camera talent) and selling to fundraise for educational programs that benefit Big Island students through the AstroDay Institute. Help us spread the word, and we'll see you on Big Island cable access channel 27 every night on "Live in Paradise" at 7:30pm.