SCIENCE IN THE SUN
----------------
John Pazmino
NYSkies Astronomy Inc
www.nyskies.org
nyskies@nyskies.org
2012 March 4
Introduction
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This 2012 New York City Science and Engineering Fair was about the
smoothest run in recent years. It convened on 2012 March 4 at City
College, Hamilton Hts MH. With only one serious downer, not within the
scope of the Fair, every thing went quickly and cleanly.
Mr Steve Kaye and Mr Harvey (I forget his first name) between them
had eight contestants. I went as chaperone with them as well as to
serve as judge at the Fair.
I started judging for the Fair several years ago when it let out a
call for extra judges. Mr Kaye, a longtime judge and mentor for
contestants at his high school, enrolled me. Since then I served at
almost every Fair with him.
We assembled at the Kings Highway station of the Brighton line at
7AM. The day was mild and the sky was clear with a few thin clouds. I
donned my heavy jacket for being to hand on a door knob. I quickly had
to leave it unbuttoned in the warm air, even so early in the morning,
as I walked to my bus stop. The ride on the bus and train was entirely
normal for a weekend morning.
I arrived at Kings Highway a few minutes before 7 and took the
chance to buy a new MetroCard. This is the farecard in New York and my
current card expires in a few days. Having a new one in pocket avoids
nasty embarrassments if I offer a card that expired behind my back.
No hablo Ingles?
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Like in previous years most of the contestants are new Americans,
students arriving in the United States within the last couple years.
'Normal' Americans long ago passed up on this, and other, science and
technical contests.
A few students arrived within minutes with their project displays.
I welcomed them and assured that Mr Kaye will be here soon. He was,
almost as I finished my welcome. Mr Harvey also came along with two
more students. Steve took rollcall and asked about the missing
students. The kids know each other from school and sometimes worked
together on their projects.
For those with no cause for lateness, Steve started to call by
cellphone. It some cases the student was on his way, leaving at home
the parents. School in New York starts much earlier than a 9-to=5
workday, so the kid is out of the house first.
Parent answers. Steve asks, 'Is Malawi there? He's due at the
train station now for the science fair.'
Response: 'uoga booga, mumbo jumbo'. The student is in the US so
briefly that the parents speak only the homeland language! Steve asks
around for any kid who knows Malawi's parents and can ask them about
her. A boy volunteers. After some exchange of unintelligible sounds,
the boy explains that Malawi left home a ten minutes ago and is on her
way to the station.
On the way
--------
Eventually every one is accounted for and we lineup for a last
minute rollcall. Because this ride is not part of a formal school trip,
the kids had to pay their own fare. Their school-issued MetroCards
aren't valid on weekends. They are rejected by the turnstile.
Many students did have separate cards for personal use but several
did not. Some time was frittered for these kids to buy new cards.
Steve told them to get the lowest denomination for a round trip to
keep the expense down I believe this is $5, which is actually a shade
more than a round trip, but, OK, just get the damn card.
We shepherded the kids onto the train with intent to change trains
on Manhattan. On weekends only locals run and these do not go all the
way to City College. The ride was calm with the usual banter among the
kids. There were seats for most leaving a couple kids to stand nearby.
The interchange was at 34th St/Herald Sq, where the train to City
College passes thru on a different platform. The group in good order
trooped quickly thru the station to the other platform.
In the general weekend busyness of Manhattan,the station was
jammed with riders. The din was a bit much to hear Steve's
instructions. He told the students to board a 'D', delta, train but a
'B', bravo, route also works this station. I had to clarify by
exhorting the kids to get on ONLY the 'delta, david' train.
The rest of the ride to City College was swift. For many kids this
was the first ride so far north on Manhattan. They just had no prior
cause to venture this far from Brooklyn. They all loved the rocket-
ride on the express tracks. The lights in the tunnel and on the local
stops we blew thru were like meteors!
At the College
------------
We got off at the 145th St station on the 8th Av line, the closest
one to the College. We herded the kids to the street and along a few
blocks to the campus. The air was now quite warm, like a late spring
day. We stopped briefly at the former site of the Alexander Hamilton
House, which is now around the corner in St Nicholas Pk for a more
historical setting. Hamilton's statue is still in place in the empty
lot, lonely and probably neglected. There seemed to be no signs
calling attention to the house's new location.
The Fair was in Shepard Hall the grand cathedral of the College.
We mustered up the students according to last name and got them set up
in the Great Hall, the cathedral salon of Shepard hall, at their
proper tables. Steve gave each display a look-over. All passed the
smoke test.
We brang several students to the Abraham Lincoln statue near the
registration tables to rub its nose. This statue is a bust of the
president tucked against a column. It can be missed by a casual
visitor. Rubbing the nose gives good luck, just as it did for Steve
and me when we were students at the College decades ago. Several kids
missed this ritual because they were already heading into Great Hall
to find their tables.
Judges orientation
----------------
With the kids set up in Shepard Hall we all skipped across the
street to the North Academic Center for the judges session. If you
ever need an example of glatt ugly design, use this building! It's in
the 1970s 'destructionist' style that really looks like a disaster.
I had only a quick small bowl of cereal before leaving my house.
Kaye and Harvey skipped breakfast. All of us were hungry. The judges
orientation included a buffet breakfast with hot and cold items. Every
one stocked up heavily and then sat at tables labeled with their
specialties.
I can judge several categories but this year I was assigned to
'earth and planetary sciences'. This table had four other judges, with
two being here for the first time. We others coached them on the
purpose of the Fair and the need to be honest with the contestants.
After a few speeches by Fair officials, instructions were issued
to the horde. I do mean 'horde' because there were about 300 judges!
Each judge when entering the judges hall got a pack of forms
common for all categories. This was explained over the PA while we
chowed our breakfast and went back for seconds. For each category Fair
crew passed out project-specific papers, which we divvied up among us
to allot six or seven projects apiece. Each project will be assessed
four times at separate visits by the judges. We did not circulate as a
team. I ended up with six projects.
The scoring sheets were this year good and clear and easy to read!
In some prior years I had to struggle to make out tiny writing and
fill in spaces on the hoof in Great Hall. The forms this year had
large dark-printed lettering and clearly impressed fill-in circles.
With the forms was a large solid clipboard that was a lifesaver.
Soonest we sorted out our forms and finished breakfast we were
released to go to Great Hall and begin the judging. Altho there was no
time limit per project, the whole judging period was two hours. From
prior experience this was handily enough time to work six projects.
The judging
---------
The exhibits were set up on tiers and rows of lunch tables
deployed in Great Hall. This year there were about 550 projects, some
with two or three students as a team. The slightly lower number of
contestants allowed for wider aisles between tables. Circulation
during the judging was free and clear.
As it happened, all of my projects were on one table in the 'earth
and planetary sciences' area of the hall. This arrangement let me
finish my projects within 1-1/2 hour, with leftover time to relax and
study other projects as a spectator.
When a judge did a project he initialed a completion card tacked
to the display. That way the student tracked the number of his
inspections, there being four per exhibit.
The projects
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This year all but one of my projects were good ones. The students
knew what they were doing and answered my questions well. The one weak
project happened to about astronomy and earned only a middle score. Mu
projects, in alphabetic order, ere:
AGN IN THE 'COSMOS' FIELD. The student examined spectral profiles
for galaxies in the Cosmic Evolution Survey field, a two-degree area
of sky. The data came from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The active
galactic nuclei, the student explained, may be quasars or blackholes
interacting with material from the galaxy. When the material nearby
runs out, the luminous emission falls off. Of the galaxies in the CES
field, 434 were Seyfert galaxies, with high total radiation emission,
and 14% had low luminous output.
AN UPLIFTING IDEA: ESR DATING MARINE MOLLUSCS IN THE
MEDITERRANEAN. The team of three students collected mollusk shells
from several places in Greece and Turkey and dated them with the ESR
technique. They found that samples from sedimentary rock at similar
elevations above present sea level were of different ages. The team
suggests that certain places were uplifted by tectonic activity,
pushing younger shells to higher elevation.
INVESTIGATING HUMAN AND APE ELBOW FUNCTION USING 3D LASER
SCANNING: IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMAN EVOLUTION. The student compared the
bone and joint movement of elbows for primates and humans. Primates
use their arms to support body weight in walking and have a restricted
range of motion. Humans do not. Yet the overall structure and joints
are similar.
RELATIONSHIP OF PRECIPITATION TO CLOUD PROPERTIES FROM A STORM
TRACKER DATABASE. The student tried to find observable parameters of a
newly formed storm that can predict precipitation produced by that
storm. She found that there was no obvious correlation between any of
the measured parameters of storms and their rainfall except for the
cloud temperature. There was a weak function of temperature versus
rain, with warmer clouds at the start of the storm yielding more
precipitation. She took data from about 200 storms from National
Weather Service's Storm Tracking database.
STELLAR SPECTROSCOPY; CLASSIFYING SPECTRA. The student collected
examples of star spectra from various sources to arrange them in
categories. She found that most spectra have a continuous background
caused by high temperature. The images showed the shift of peak
blackbody emission for temperature but she didn't call attention to
it. She pointed out the gradation of spectral lines in her arrangement
but could not explain how they are formed. She continuously said
'SPEKK-troh-skoh-pee' rather than 'spekk-TRO-sko-pee'.
THE EFFECTS OF ELEVATION, AZIMUTH, AND CLIMATE ON RED SPRUCE DIE-
BACK IN THE ADIRONDACKS, NEW YORK STATE. The student examined the
mortality of spruce trees on hills in the Adirondacks. He explained
that 'azimuth' is the side of the hill the tree was on. He compared
his work with a previous study from 2003-2004 and obtained about the
same results. There was almost no correlation for azimuth and
reasonable relations for elevation and climate. In general the higher
trees had higher mortality because they were more exposed to winter
cold and wind.
Completion and lunch
------------------
When I finished all six of my projects I handed in the scoring
forms to the Fair's officials in a separate room and collected my
thank-you prizes. These were an umbrella with a Science & Engineering
Fair motif and a Rubik's cube of similar design. This latter was a bit
peculiar. It was a key chain with a clasp on one corner to hang, well,
keys. I can't see anyone using it this way. The cube, about 6cm on the
side, is much too bulky for any pocket.
The umbrella fooled me. It had a plastic cover which I slipped off
and then tried to pop it open to make sure it worked. No action. I
looked for a snap to loosen as most umbrellas are held closed with it.
No snaps. After much fiddling I realized the canopy was a second,
cloth, cover. When I pulled this off the umbrella, because the release
button was already pressed in, flew open in my hands and tumbled to
the floor! Yes, those around me had a good laugh.
We also got a lunch ticket for the student cafeteria. It allowed a
selection of full meals, as such are offered in a college cafeteria.
Steve and I went for lunch. Harvey got separated but we joined up with
him later.
The cockup!
---------
City College on weekends is usually quiet with only a few hundred
students on campus. The cafeteria crew is notched down to match this
expected level of service. Today the cafeteria was hit by about a full
thousand of judges and students all at once in early afternoon. The
place was swamped.
The wait was miserable with much griping and grousing among the
waiting customers. The lines creeped slowly. The serving crew
occasionally barked out that such-&-such item was depleted. After
around 40 minutes we got to the serving counter and took meals. In the
crowd Steve and I got lost but we had to return to the Great Hall
later. I didn't worry.
This situation was not the fault of the Fair. It's far more likely
that the College simply didn't post a large enough crew or ample
enough stock of food.
The food was, uh, so-so. OK, filling, yet hardly tasty. I finished
my plate in only ten minutes, then headed back to Great Hall.
Public viewing
------------
The public was invited to visit the Fair and inspect the projects
from 2 thru 4 PM. I included this event in the March 2012 NYC Events.
This period spanned the lunch break for the judges and students. When
I arrived back in Shepard Hall the exhibit room was filled with
visitors chatting with the project contestants. Many displays were
uncrewed because their students didn't get back from lunch yet.
The public viewing tied the student to the exhibit long after
judging was complete. In some previous Fairs the viewing was in the
morning, during the judges briefing. The judging was in the afternoon.
When a project received its full number of assessments, usually four,
it could knock down. This time every one stayed in place until 4PM.
The knock-down triggered at quite 4PM after a PA announcement that
the public viewing is over. Within ten minutes just about every
exhibit was folded and packed! Harvey and Kaye gathered their students
and checked that they were ready to rumble homeward. We set off for
the 145th Street station.
Conclusion
--------
The ride home was smooth with a quick change again at Herald
Square. Steve allowed kids to get off the second train along the way
if that was convenient for them. He didn't insist they stay on all the
way back to Kings Highway. I bailed out at Avenue J to get my bus and
got into my house by quite 6PM. .