SPIE Annual Report 2015 Student Optics Chapter of University of Sydney

Transcription

1 SPIE Annual Report 2015 Student Optics Chapter of University of Sydney The 2015 Chapter - Members Number Name SPIE Member Number 1 Scott Brownless jbro@physics.usyd.edu.au (President) 2 Caitlin Fisher (Vice President) c.fisher@physics.usyd.edu.au Iman Aryanfar (Secretary) i.aryanfar@physics.usyd.edu..au Moritz Merklein moritzmerklein@gmail.com (Treasurer) 5 Blair Morrison bmor2447@uni.sydney.edu.au (Outreach Officer) 6 Fernando Diaz f.diaz@physics.usyd.edu.au (Outreach Officer) 7 Alvaro Casas Bedoya casas@physics.usyd.edu.au (SPIE Advisor) 8 Maram Alakhras 9 Stephanie Crawford 10 Tomonori Hu 11 Emma Lindley 12 Neetesh Singh 13 Atiyeh Zarifi 14 Loris Marini 15 El-abed Haidar 16 Jiakun He 17 Il Ku Kim 18 Sikdar Mohammad Marnes Rasel 19 Madeleine Sabordo 20 Gabriela Afrasinei 21 Christopher Betters <currently 22 Iman Jizan <currently 23 Paul Stewart <currently 24 Bjorn Sturmberg <currently 1

2 25 Wen Jun Toe <currently 26 Julian Grodzicky <currently 27 Thomas Buettner <currently Event Summary: Major Project: IYL Vivid Laser Harp Date: 22 nd May - 8 th June 2015 Cost: Over $16,000. Granted $3,000 from the SPIE-IYL Outreach Grant This year s big chapter project was entering Sydney s annual Light Festival Vivid with our installation, the Laser Harp. The Vivid festival runs for 18 nights from 6-12pm and features a set of art installations along a city-wide walk freely open to the public. This year, 1.4 million visitors from all over Australia and from overseas came to Vivid which was a record number of attendees. The Laser Harp was designed and developed by the whole student chapter, and the laser harp itself was made by an ex-student member. The Laser Harp is a musical instrument which has 15 laser strings which play notes when the laser beams are interrupted. Each note would be accompanied by an animation on a screen, and each animation described a different property of a wave: size, volume, frequency, pitch and speed. 2

3 More detail can be found in our IYL Grant Report and also the attached article that we wrote specifically to thank the SPIE for their generous grant and to celebrate this huge achievement for our chapter! Vivid Social Casual Drinks Date: 5 th June 2015 Costs: $ As a courtesy to all the people who volunteered a lot of their time to the Laser Harp project, we invited the animators, engineers and the student chapter to come to a celebratory social drinks and dinner at a pub near the Laser Harp exhibit. We had 15 people come along, 9 of which were chapter members. Laser Tag Social Event Date: 12 th December 2014 Costs: $32.55 (taxi transport costs) As a treat for having such a good year and to celebrate the hard work of the previous chapter committee, the whole chapter (~20 people) went out to play laser tag together 3

4 before the Christmas holidays. Everyone paid for their own laser tag games and we had a very relaxing time socialising after the games. It was a great end to the year! Weekly Soccer Ongoing Social Events Date: All Year Round Costs: $0 Headed by our Outreach officers, the weekly Thursday soccer games were held on the oval outside the Physics Building at the University of Sydney. This regular social event was a friendly game of soccer and anyone could attend. Attendance was regularly 4-10 people, and our members appreciated the flexibility of this social event. Pizza Talks Public Event Dates: 3 rd October 2014, 20 th May 2015 Total Costs: $ (pizzas) The Pizza Talks were public lectures given by a member of our chapter about either their PhD work or an optics topic of their choice. After the lecture, the attendees were encouraged to ask questions, mingle with the talker and provided with free pizza. Both lectures were well attended with approximately undergraduate and postgraduate students attending, and both talkers receive positive feedback on their talks. These events were great public speaking experience for the speakers, engaged many students and were great platforms to introduce the chapter to a new pool of potential members. BBQ Centennial Park Social Event Date: 3 rd March 2015 Cost: $ (food and drink) We had a lovely outdoors BBQ picnic in Centennial Park in Sydney with ~20 of our members attending. The chapter provided the food and drink, and equipment for outdoor ball games. Members were encouraged to bring their friends and the event became quite large with up to 40 people coming. Non-members were asked to contribute a small amount of money to 4

5 cover their share of the food. This was a great event for welcoming new PhD students and visiting students to our cohort who came at the beginning of the year, and promoted social networking amongst the members. Introduction Session Advertising the Chapter Date: 20 th March 2015 Cost: $91.65 (pizzas) This talk was strategically placed near the end of the university s semester 1 to introduce the SPIE (and OSA) to current and potential members of the chapter. The PowerPoint presentation was presented by the Vice President and explained the benefits of joining the SPIE and the student chapter! There were 20 attendees including 5 non-members, which meant lots of networking after the talk. Free pizza was provided for the attendees. 5

6 Visiting Professor Federico Capasso - Q&A Afternoon Tea Date: 25 th March 2015 Costs: $35.81 (afternoon tea + drinks) As Professor Federico Capasso was already coming to give a public lecture at the University of Sydney in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence, CUDOS (Centre of Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems), we invited Prefessor Capasso to an afternoon tea where our members could ask questions. Light refreshments were served in the physics tea room, and 13 people attended. We received good feedback from the session and students said it provided a casual environment to chat to an esteemed colleague. Follow-Up Recruitment BBQ Date: 28 th May 2015 Costs: $ (food + drinks) We invited all of our members and keen undergraduates to come to a welcome BBQ at the end of the first semester at the University of Sydney. The timing was perfect because after the BBQ, many participants went straight to a University of Sydney International Year of 6

7 Light event, Enlighten. We had people come to the event, which was a mix of our current members and committee, as well as enthusiastic undergraduate students who had heard of the event through the Pizza Talks earlier in semester. University of Sydney IYL Event Enlighten + Photonics Talk Date: 28 th May 2015 Costs: $0 The University of Sydney held a number of public lectures in honour of the International Year of Light, including this series of talks called Enlighten. After a series of optics talks given by university lecturers, the audience were invited to visit some optics demonstrations ran by volunteer members of our chapter. We had three stalls featuring optical fibres, the laser telephone and an infrared camera. Many members of the public, including many children, came through the demonstration stalls for 1.5 hours. Approximately 200 people visited the stalls. University of Sydney IYL Event Photonics Talk 7

8 Date: 17 th September 2015 Costs: $0 The chapter also provided demonstrations after another University of Sydney IYL event (during the new committee s term), this time with the laser telephone, the infrared camera and the laser harp from the Vivid event. Approximately people attended this IYL talk, half of them invited high school students. We heard excellent feedback from the participants and their enjoyment of the friendly demonstrators. WOMBAT Public Lecture Professor Kerry Vahala Date: 20 th July 2015 Cost: OSA travelling lecturer grant + $85 joint activity drinks The student chapter provided the travel grant (OSA) to invite Professor Kerry Vahala to attend both the local WOMBAT (Workshop on OptoMechanics and Brillouin scattering: fundamentals, Applications and Technologies) conference and to give a public lecture at the University of Sydney. The chapter were given sponsor status for the conference. Kerry Vahala gave a fantastic public lecture and 100 people attended. 8

9 We also took the opportunity to invite the Macquarie Student Chapter to come to a joint event after the public lecture as many of them were attending the conference. We had a small gathering at a local pub for dinner and casual drinks after the lecture where 3 Macquarie members attended and 9 Sydney members attended. At this meeting, we agreed to share information on the Sydney laser harp and Macquarie laser telephone outreach demonstrations to improve both chapters outreach kits. Future Events Building portable laser harp for outreach activities: working with the previous builders and engineers to build a small laser harp based on the Vivid model so as to take to high schools and public outreach events. This will be an on-going project including redesigning and procuring funding from outreach grants. 9

10 Outreach demonstration kit competition: making a competition available to students and chapter members alike to design and create an outreach demonstration which can be added to the current outreach kit. This is planned to happen early 2016 near the start of our university semester one. Joint social networking activity with Macquarie University chapter: following on from the success of our previous joint activity, we plan to continue building on our relationship by going go karting or going to laser tag with the Macquarie University chapter. We hope to have this joint activity mid One Pizza Talk per semester: continuing the yearly success of these public lectures, we plan to hold two more Pizza Talks in 2016, one per semester. Building a laser telephone for the chapter outreach kit: our friendly relations with the Macquarie University chapter have allowed us to borrow the Macqurie laser telephone kit to aid in general outreach activities and other public events. This year, we plan to make our own laser telephone kit which will be more portable and convenient for our own chapter use. This includes redesigning the original kit, sourcing the materials and sourcing the funding (which we are discussing currently with the university and the school of physics, who are keen to assist). 10

11 Financial Summary Please note: all amounts are in Australian dollars. Income Source Reason Amount 29/10/2014 Sydney University Late Koala Reg Payments $ /12/2014 SPIE Activity Grant $ 1, /06/2015 OSA IYL Grant: Laser Harp $ 2, /07/2015 SPIE IYL Grant: Laser Harp $ 3, /08/2015 Maquarie University Joint Event Reimbursement $ Credit Interest $ 0.56 Total $ 8, Expenditure Cheque Number Expense Amount Pizza Talk pizza (previous chapter 13/10/2014 Chq 141 committee) $ /11/2014 Chq 142 Laser Harp - equipment $ /12/2014 Chq 143 Pizza Talk - pizza $ /03/2015 Chq 144 Laser Tag - taxi $ /03/2015 Chq 145 Welcome BBQ - food $ /03/2015 Chq 147 SPIE Introduction - pizza $ /04/2015 Chq 146 F. Capasso Q&A - snacks $ /05/2015 Chq 148 Laser Harp - equipment $ 3, /05/2015 Chq 149 Laser Harp - equipment $ /05/2015 Chq 150 Laser Harp - animations $ /06/2015 Chq 153 Welcome BBQ - food $ /06/2015 Chq 151 Welcome BBQ - food $ /06/2015 Chq 152 Vivid Social - food, drink $ /07/2015 Chq 154 Laser Harp - equipment $ 1, /07/2015 Chq 155 AGM - morning tea $ /07/2015 Chq 156 Macquarie Joint drinks $ Total $ 6, Net Total $ 1, Starting Position $ 5, End Position $ 6, Check Sum $ 6,