Meeting this Saturday

TAPT-ers,

We meet for a regular meeting Saturday, February 4th. We will try the 9:00 time again - it worked out well last meeting. Jim Housley will be joining us with a suitcase full of demos. Bring your own demo, or demo idea to share. Jim might put it into production. If you need things in your classroom, this is the meeting to come to. 

We'll have potluck breakfast, so bring a dish to share if you can manage it. We aim to end by 11:00. J.D. address is [use contact form on this blog for address]. 

Hope to see you there,

Karie

Meeting Notes and Upcoming Dates

TAPT-ers,

We had a bunch of delicious food at our start-of-the-year meeting. Scones, muffins, cinnamon rolls – apparently no one has started their New Year diet yet.

Bruce Bayly was only one of the Brits attending. (Helen Reynolds has recently joined the teaching staff of Greenfields.) Sorry for the digression, I meant to remind everyone that Bruce has arranged for Calculus, the Musical! to be presented here next Friday, January 27, 2017. I’ll attach the flyer, or go to www.eventbrite.com/e/calculus-the-musical-tickets-30503889956 for tickets.

We had a super interesting demo by Chris Ubing. He used his I/O lab device to measure the magnetic field of a current-carrying wire. He showed how to get the 1/r dependence using loggerPro or excel graphing of B vs r.

J.D. had three things to report – he has recently submitted questions for the physics GRE, he has been interviewing Flinn scholarship applicants – quite a task since there are many and they are all outstanding – and he gave a talk on The Role of Time in Science and Religion, which we want him to reprise for TAPT.

Fritz brought a lot of books, and they might have a theme that he is very interested in, which is AI, the new electricity according to Fritz, meaning AI is as revolutionary as electricity was:

Why Information Grows, by Cesar Hidalgo. Economic growth can be treated like natural systems

The Dreams that Stuff Is Made Of, by Steven Hawking, a collection of papers or readings about modern physics.

By Michael Lewis, The Undoing Project about Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tverskyan and how they collaborated on decision theory.

Zen Flesh Zen Bones, a “collection of primary Zen sources” according to Amazon.

Lenin’s Tomb, by David Remick (historical)

The Master Algorithm:How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our Worldby Pedro Domingos. I guess this is the fascinating AI book mentioned at the beginning.

Steve Hoell gave a nice demo about a battery in a spring – it zips through. He found it in the January 2016 AJP I think. I’m going to try to attach a video.

Future dates:

Our next meeting is February 4^th, and our friend Jim Housley will be here with some equipment. Maybe bring a bag – I know he won’t want to take it back with him.

On March 4^th we will have a meeting about preparing students for the AP exams. I’m a long-time AP grader and will talk about the new exams and give some hints.

Then April 8^th is the AzAAPT meeting, which will be held at the U of A in the Physics and Atmospherics building (PAS). We are working on a speaker.

We are planning our end-of-year party on May 13^th, and will be twisting J.D.’s arm to talk about time in science and religion.

If you are of a mind to drive, the second annual un-conference of STEMteachersPHX is January 28, from 10 am to 1 pm at Pinnacle High School in Phoenix. I know it's far, but this is a great group. Registration is free at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2nd-annual-unconference-tickets-30424058177

Recertification hours are available for all meetings – I try to remember to bring forms, but an advance email is helpful.

Hope to see everyone on February 4^th.

Karie

Karie Meyers, Ph.D.

Physics Instructor and Chair, Physics and Geosciences Department

Pima Community College West Campus

phone: 206-6695
office: E230
email: kameyers1@pima.edu

Meeting on Saturday

TAPT-ers,

Happy New Year!

We meet Saturday at 9:00 at J.D. Garcia’s house. The address is [use contact form for address]. We’ll have potluck breakfast. Bring a demo or toy that you got over the break to share. Chris Ubing will show labs using an IO device he has been working with - it’s fantastic. 

Hope to see you all there.

Karie

Upcoming Meetings and a Workshop

We meet on January 14th, and we are trying a new time, just a bit later, at 9:00. We’ll meet at J.D. Garcia’s house for potluck breakfast and to share new physics demos and toys you got for the holidays. Also, Chris Ubing will be showing some rotation labs using the IO/lab. 

A couple of other items:

For our February meeting, which is February 4th, our friend Jim Housely will be visiting from Alaska. He can carry two suitcases worth of physics equipment and is taking requests. If you’ve seen his demos, you know what you can ask for, but I don’t have a complete list. You can email him at jmhousley@aol.com if you have questions, or requests. If you have something in mind that you would like a demo of, lots of times he already has something similar. He has lots of pressure and vacuum demos, and also sets of density blocks. If you email him, I think he could help you articulate what you might like to have.

DaNel Hogan has asked me to pass on a workshop opportunity for medical physics. It’s a two or three day meeting in Phoenix, free to teachers, with a theme of medical physics. See the flyer below. Also, here is a website: https://www.xcdsystem.com/wmsym/files/2017%20Teacher%20Workshop%20Flyer.pdf. The title is Exploring our Radioactive World, and it looks great, and DaNel says it is an exceptional workshop. Oh, and it’s free to teachers.

Hope to see you on the 14th. I’ll email next week with directions, etc.

Karie

Meeting Tomorrow

TAPT-ers,

This meeting snuck up on me, what with all the end of the semester stuff. On the plus side, the semester is almost over! 

We are meeting Saturday at J.D. Garcia's house at 8:30 am for a potluck (holiday-ish) breakfast and to set our agenda for next semester. I hope you will join us. J.D.'s address is 3100 E. Calle Portal.( I decided to stop attaching directions, since everyone maps anyway, but if you want directions, please email me.) We aim to end by 10:30. 

Hope to see you all there! Bring your ideas for next semester! All are welcome, and this is a sociable meeting, so come and let us know how your semester went.

Best,

Karie

More with Arduinos

TAPT,

We had a great meeting Saturday (actually Saturday before last), playing with Arduinos. Many thanks to Juan Cuarda and Chien-Wei Han for the time taken to instruct. I was asked for a more advanced workshop, so maybe that's a future topic. 

If you missed that workshop, or even if you didn't, you might be interested in the flyer attached, kindly forwarded by Bruce Bayly. According to the organizer, Eric Case, as written to Bruce:

We are trying to make the workshop accessible to everyone.  I’m hoping some people will bring their middle school or high school children.

Room 214, in McClelland Hall, has 29 computers and holds about 50 people, although I don’t expect we’ll have that many at any one time, but if you can send 50 over, we’ll take them.  The building should be unlocked from 7 AM to 5 PM on Saturday.

I hope you and your students can make it.
-Eric

Contact for Eric:

Eric Case, CISSP
Lecturer
Information Security Evangelist
Department of Management Information Systems
Eller College of Management, The University of Arizona
ecase (at) email (dot) arizona (dot) edu
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ericcase

[There is a flyer here.]

Our next TAPT meeting is December 10, at 8:30 am, at J.D. Garcia's house. [Use the contact form on this blog if you need the address]

We'll have our usual breakfast potluck, and it could be holiday-themed if you choose, no expectations though. We will be planning our next semester dates and activities, and socializing. We aim to end around 10:30.

Hope everyone's semester is ending well,

Karie

Meeting Tomorrow

Tucson Area Teachers,

Two Pima teachers will be leading an Arduino workshop just for us Saturday. I hope you can come, and if you are planning to come, please drop me a quick line. 

We will meet at 8:30 am in room F102 at Pima Community College West Campus. Park on the north side of Pima, past the solar panels. Walk up the main steps near the J building and the F building and F102 will be right in front of you.

We have our computers configured with Arduino software, but if you would like to download your own, you will be able to do it at the workshop. Or if you have already downloaded it from Arduino at https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software, that works too. We will be using Arduino Unos, and if you have one of those, bring that too. 

There will be coffee and snacks, and also let me know if you would like a re-cert certificate. 

Some projects: the ubiquitous flashing light, timer, running a DC motor, ...

Chien Wei is making some handouts for us, and a rough head count would be helpful. If you decide to come at the last minute, that's fine, we just need an approximate number.

To get to Pima, 2202 W. Anklam Road: From Speedway, going west, go past the I10 freeway. There is a light at Greasewood, where you should turn left. Take the first left into Pima, and follow the drive all the way around, past the solar panels to the next parking lot. Look for my red car. There is a big set of steps, and our room, F102, will be near the top of the steps. 

Hope to see you there!

Any questions, please email me.

Karie