Past events: usually fairly sparse, but we'll try to keep things up and running so everyone can know what's been going on. Also, so that I can know what happened.
We got new officers again, and yours truly is passing on the webmistressing to a Chem major! Best of all, new faces.
President: Ellie Newton
Vice President: Jason Disbrow
Secretary: Francois Hebert
Treasury Committee Chair: Ryan Hazelton
Outreach Coordinator: Clark Beech
Webmistress: Maddie Grossman
We've had a lot of fun hanging out every Monday at El Sitio. The turnout has ranged from one table to three or four, from note-copying to heart-felt discussions. Seriously, it's been really fun, and especially nice to have a a time set aside just for socialising.
Long in the plannning and well worth it, we took several car loads of people up to Lompoc for a tour that was geared towards college physics majors. We first talked to a guy in the Air Force, who although wasn't a scientist was able to talk to us about policy and logistics of the missile defense program. He answered our questions without propoganda, of which there were many, and I, at least, felt like we learned a lot. We had a big disappointment after that: we were told we wouldn't get to see the rocket that was set to launch. We trudged along anyways, and had a really nice talk with the some engineers about the history and science of rocket launching. Then we were told we had about a 30 minute window in which to go see the rocket, so we rushed out, put on hard-hats, and braved the wind. I was pretty excited to get my picture taken in front of a rocket that was about to be blasted into space. It was definitely the highlight of our trip!
One of our officers, Bay, hosted a LAN party, brought to you by the Associated Students. A lot of computers and good fun for all!
After watching TRON--a computer science classic, first watched by yours truly in the freshman dorms--we decided that a weekly "unofficial" meeting was in order. By unofficial, we mean, come hang out with us because we like you, but it's not a sanctioned event and there is thus no free food.
Liquid Nitrogen ice-cream social and a screening of "Hypercube". Or was that hypercute? Still in Scotland-- it got a lot colder in the past few weeks too.
Information, general planning, and of course free food. But to start off we had a panel, hosted by the Women in Physics, on applying to grad school. Pretty important if you ask me, and I totally would have attended... except that I was thousands of miles away. Woops.
The movie of the night was, as always, a bad sci-fi film for us to laugh at. The film was "The Black Hole" in which a particle accelerator (presumably the LHC) goes boom and a black hole is created. Throw in a dimensional gateway, an intergalactic monster, stereotypical scientists, bad acting, and the One Nuke Solution and you have yourself a good time with fellow Physics majors rolling on the floor. Such bad/good times for those of us in attendance!
We've had several outreach events this year where we take the QuestBoards to local schools. We use the QuestBoards to teach the kids about electricity and magnetism! This year, we have several new boards that were created by UCSB students over summer; we've been taking these out recently. April 24th may have been our last outreach event for the year. We had only three volunteers and seven circuit boards, but also a constant (and large!) stream of interested kids and parents. We all agreed it was a great night.
Elections! We elected a new set of officers, luckily no winners were Schrodinger's Cat, though he did run for three positions:
President: Susanna Kohler
Vice President: Ian McFarlane
Treasurer: Ryan Hazelton
Sigma Pi Sigma Coordinator: Kathryn McGill
Outreach Coordinator: open
Event Coordinator: Bay Gabrowski
Webmistress: Ellie Newton
We chose not to elect a secretary and creating the position of event coordinator.
The Outreach Coordinator is still open. if interested, email sps@physics.ucsb.edu
Following elections, we attempted to make geodesic domes out of twinkies.
This Saturday SPS is putting on a Firefly marathon. We will watch all 15 episodes of Firefly (and Serenity if people are up for it). Although SPS is hosting the event all fans, fans to be, or interested persons are welcome! Tell your friends or forward them this email. The more the merrier.
We made liquid nitrogen ice cream sundaes (gourmet-style: we had chocolate sauce, cherries, and bananas). Then we watched "The Core"!
Favorite quotes included:
"Destiny: D-E-S-T-I-N-I." We all knew Hollywood writers could spell.
"The invisible microwaves..." As opposed to the visible kind?
"What is this? Nobel prize winners anonymous?"
"Now let's start at the beginning: Torque equals r x F."
"Unobtainium." Enough said.
"What the hell am I doing?" That's the question we all had...
1. Sign up for our tour of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab! The JPL field trip this year will be on Tuesday, April 10. We will be leaving SB at 9 in the morning and picnicing down in Pasadena. We are due at JPL for check in at 12:45. 2. Hope School Science Night tomorrow evening We're taking the circuit boards out tomorrow evening and need volunteers!
We've got a little article in this year's departmental newsletter, Inside Physics .
After over a year of inactivity, our website is receiving an update. Accurate information and more pages coming soon. We're also starting the "archive" page up again, to record (some) past events and give people an idea of what we do.
President: Susanna Kohler
Vice President: Ellie Newton
Secretary: Sean Zumwalt
Treasurer: Ryan Hazelton
Sigma Pi Sigma Coordinator: Alan Mak
Outreach Coordinator: Ian McFarlane