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NCNAAPT

Renewable Energy Workshop at UC Berkeley, March 5-6, 2011

The workshop is sponsored by the AAPT as well as the APS Forum on Physics and Society as well as the new APS Topical Group on Energy Research and Applications. It will be held March 5-6 at UC Berkeley (Evans Hall 10). The workshop should be of interest to faculty who wish to introduce energy topics into their courses as well as advanced students who might be interested in some aspect of energy research. A similar course organized three years ago was considered a great success. Participants will receive a book of the talks presented. REGISTER SOON. We sold out…

Modeling Workshop

20 educators attended the afternoon “Introduction to Modeling” workshop lead by Lee Trampleasure and Jon Rockman. Educators were lead through the development of one of the Modeling “paradigm labs.”  The lab used constant velocity cars to develop position vs time data that could be graphed to determine the average velocity of the cars. After groups graphed their data, they created whiteboard presentations of their results. After a discussion of the results, Lee presented data from his classes this year, showing the results of 20 student groups. For more information on Modeling Instruction, visit modeling.asu.edu.

Keynote: Blinky Lights

By Don Rathjen and Paul Doherty (absent presenter Sebastian Martin) from the Exploratorium A link to the powerpoint that accompanied this presentation will be linked soon. “Blinky Lights” is a nickname for a small LED light by Inova called a MicroLight. The light has three settings: bright, dim and blinking. Pressing the light once sets it to bright which is on constantly; two clicks is dim and then three clicks is blinking. The dim setting is actually oscillating on a duty cycle that blinks it back and forth very fast. You can see this by setting it to dim and…

Fall 2010 Meeting summary

This post includes a summary of our Fall meeting (it is being expanded during this week). You  can download and print a certificate of participation here. Share and Tell presentations. Keynote: Blinky Lights Modeling Instruction introduction workshop Meeting announcement/description.

Fall Mini-Conference Share n Tell

At every section meeting one of our most popular portions is the Share n Tell during which participants have five minutes to share a demo, idea, concept, book, problem, example, etc. Talkative participants must fear the dreaded gong at the end of five minutes. Below please find notes and relevant links from the special double session of Share n Tell from our Fall NCNAAPT Section Meeting and mini-conference: Don Payne, Carondelet High School A Piezo Electric popper (spark fed) has been adapted to drive a small toy car. A film canister is filled with either  ethanol or Bonaca breath spray.…