spectrometer_minutes_8-13

Present for Telecon: Steve, Lisa, Nicholas, Bernhard

Secretary: Nicholas

1:05 PT

Schedule Update

Classes: 9/30, 10/2 from 8:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.

Steve, Nicholas, Lisa have booked flights (9/28 to 10/2).

Sunday 9/28: arrive in Maui in afternoon, go to MCC, set up materials, trial runs.

Bernhard will probably fly to Maui the afternoons/evenings of 9/29 and 10/1 and return back to Hawai'i on 9/30 and 10/2.

Monday 9/29: others update Bernhard

Overnights at IfA Maui guest house. All can take one car to MCC in the mornings.

Tentative schedule for 3 more telecons:

Wednesday, 8/27, 1:00 p.m. HT, 4:00 p.m. PT

Wednesday, 9/10, 1:00 p.m. HT, 4:00 p.m. PT

Wednesday, 9/24, 1:00 p.m. HT, 4:00 p.m. PT

Scott's availability TBD

Update from Steve

Class currently has 24 enrolled students + waiting list

Inquiry groups will be 8 groups x 3 students

Materials:

CfAO budget: $1000

Purchase order has been submitted. Supplies will be shipped to IfA Maui. So all materials practice/prep must happen in Maui on 9/28 and 9/29.

Final materials list to be sent out by Steve

Features:

lots of gas tubes, "a handful" of power supplies

diffraction gratings of different resolution

"meterstick" optical rail setups

Still TBD

holders (though some come with optical rails)

Future Telecon:

Homework questions, exam questions, things to work together with Mark and John.

1:20 PT

Activity Timeline

Steve is currently updating the Wiki page. Refer to it for more details (and reference to sections named below).

Possible "dramatic change" to Day 1. . . details further below.

Current Day 1:

about 30 min intro, 60 min demos, 60 min investigation, 15 min presentations

Intro--intro:

Posters as visual aid to activity timeline

Intro--background:

Does the classroom have a chalkboard?

Starters--demo:

Changing continuum spectrum with variac, gas tubes have different line spectra.

Is it just one demo for everyone, or split them up? For now, expect to present to the whole class, but space considerations might change this plan.

Starters--starters:

3 groups of 8 students

What will the students write down? Science observations or engineering questions? What will the students actually observe?

Starters--grouping:

One facilitator gathers groups and explains what is happening. Others sort questions to give to pre-arranged groups.

Should we let students sort questions? More freedom for them, but potentially time consuming. Our design goals don't emphasize the questioning phase. So consensus is that the facilitators will sort the questions.

How will they be enabled to choose the group they want?

a. Will the whole class look at sorted questions and choose, similar to a gallery walk?

b. Or will we tell them how the groups are organized, so it's explicit which kind of investigation they're choosing?

c. Or we more indirectly probe for interest, decide which group gets which component, and give each group a set of questions at the end?

Investigations--presentations:

Very tight time constraint as of now. 4 pairs of 2 groups with 1 facilitator each, 5 min. presentation for group. Will intentionally organize which components pair up for presentation.

Misc:

When do students learn about the challenge aspect (Day 2)? Intend to include that in the Day 1 intro.

Steve's Alternative:

This version should relate Days 1 and 2 more closely.

Bernhard: more engineering, less understanding the basics

Nicholas: more abstract exploration of a general device, rather than really understanding what a spectrometer does specifically

All need time to process and evaluate the alternative.

Misc:

New potential design challenge: compact (hypothetically to put in a spacecraft).

2:00 PT

Task List

Steve: e-mail final material list