The Idaho-Utah Section of the AAPT held its annual meeting, April 30 – May 1, 2010, at Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho. Steve Shropshire, section president elect, organized the meeting. Many thanks to Steve for a very successful event!
Printed Program. There were 38 attendees (those who paid the registration fee). On Saturday, 12 oral presentations were given in three sessions. Also on Saturday, an invited talk was given by Dr. Doug Wells, Idaho State University, “Physics at the Idaho Accelerator Center.”
There were 4 poster papers. We voted for the best poster. Andrew Harmon won first prize ($50) for his poster, “Exploitation of laboratory exercises in university physics relative to instruction time,” and Brian Wieland won second prize ($25) for his poster, “Photomultiplier tube magnetic shielding for the CLAS12 central time of flight counter.” Both are students at Idaho State University.
Physics Demonstration Show
Friday evening, following dinner, we gathered for a physics demonstration show. The following are video clips from the show:
- Adam Beehler, University of Utah, Lenz’s law, rainbow vision, interference
- Richard Hills, Weber State University, Standing waves on a whadayacallit cord
- Ron Galli, Weber State University, Atmospheric pressure, rotational motion, cat twist
- Wayne Peterson, Brigham Young University, Standing waves on pan lids
- Westen Barnes, Pocatello High School, Jacob’s ladder
- James Coburn, Utah State University, Various demonstrations
- Steve Shropshire, Idaho State University, Water light pipe, shifting rainbows, intrared demos
- Amy Ferguson, Brigham Young University Idaho, Misc physics fun
- Bryan Pyper, Brigham Young University Idaho, Misc physics fun
Business Meeting
We conducted our business meeting following lunch.
We held elections of section officers. The officers of our section are now constituted as follows:
- President: Steve Shropshire, Idaho State University. (former president elect, automatically succeeded our former president, Duane Merrell.)
- President-Elect: Farhang Amiri, Weber State University (former Vice President, automatically succeeded our former president-elect, Steve Shropshire. He will organize our annual section meeting in 2011.)
- Vice President: Bryan Pyper, Brigham Young University Idaho (elected)
- Treasurer: Adam Beehler, University of Utah (re-elected)
- Section Representive: Harold Stokes, Brigham Young University
Door prizes
At the close of the meeting, we gave away prizes, drawing names at random. Most of the prizes were “physics toys” and books. We thank Vernier, Education Innovations, PASCO, Arbor Scientific, and AAPT for generously providing some of the door prizes. The grand prize was an all-expense paid trip to the national AAPT meeting in Portland, Oregon, July 17-21, 2010. The donor providing this prize specified that it be awarded to a high-school teacher who has never attended a national AAPT meeting. The winner was Adrienne Shilling, a teacher at the Idaho Virtual Academy.