SPS Zone Meeting
October 2, 2015 to October 4, 2015
Flagstaff, AZ
Meeting host: By:Miasha Bodin and Dustin Story
SPS Chapter:
This fall, Northern Arizona University’s (NAU) Society of Physics Students hosted a zone meeting for Zone 16. It was attended by approximately 45 students from the host school (NAU), Arizona State University, New Mexico Tech, and The University of New Mexico. The goal of this meeting was to promote the interaction of physics students in a professional context.
The event began on the evening of October 2nd, with an informal game night, to allow the students to socialize. At this event, the club provided food and drinks, and had a plethora of games for students to play. As a whole, the night went on without a hitch, and everyone had a good time meeting one another. The following morning we convened at 9:00 am for breakfast, registration, and introductions for those who were unable to attend the previous night. From there we discussed zone business, which included who would be hosting the next zone meeting, and events which will occur during the following school year, including the SPS Quadrennial Physics Congress. With the help of our Zone Councilor, Dr. David Dunlap, and our Associate Zone Councilor, Jared Canright, our zone decided we would forgo a zone meeting for fall of 2016 in lieu of the quadrennial congress.
Following the discussion on zone business, we had two graduate students give tours of two of the labs at NAU, the astrophysical ice lab, and the nanotechnology lab. During the tours, graduate students explained the various research projects being performed in those labs.
After the lab tours we broke for lunch and resumed at 1 pm for a talk from NAU's optics professor, Dr. Chris Mann. Dr. Mann discussed his research in digital holography, and took the students down to view the Optical Metrology Lab.
After Dr. Mann’s tour was completed, we had three students give presentations on their physics research, Samantha Sword-Fehlberg, Dustin Story, and Aditya Dhumuntarao. Our last activity of the day was a demo show and physics competition. During this time, we showed off various demos to the visiting universities. These demos consisted of our tesla coil, Reuben’s tube, ping pong cannon, angular momentum wheels, and barrel crush. During the competition portion of this event we had the chapters break up into teams of four and work together to solve 3 freshman level physics problems. Although none of the teams solved all three problems, they all had fun using their various levels of physics knowledge. Saturday night we invited the schools out to Fieldhouse Chicken and Waffles, a local restaurant in Flagstaff. While ASU left after the demo show, UNM and New Mexico Tech joined us for dinner. On Sunday, to end the zone meeting, we took the remaining students, namely those from New Mexico Tech, to Lowell Observatory for a special tour of the telescope used to find Pluto, as well as the newly reopened Clark Telescope.
We believe the meeting was successful in its goal to foster relationships between physics students at various schools throughout Zone 16. We would like to express our gratitude to the chapters who attended, and we would like to thank the NAU Physics Department and faculty for the use of the physics building and laboratories. Lastly, we would like to thank SPS National for the indispensable financial support. Below are more pictures from the meeting, as well as a list of our sources of income and expenses.
Sincerely,
Miasha Bodin - NAU SPS President
Dustin Story - NAU SPS Vice President
Dr. William Delinger - NAU SPS Advisor
Dr. David Cole - NAU SPS Advisor
