The "PHecond" Week

 

Sunday

Last meal at Hampton University, departure from Hampton Roads and arrival to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).

 

 

Monday

First day at NRAO: breakfast and meeting with OSTP's Associate Director for Science (Jo Handelsman), group project assignments using the 40-foot telescope (dedicated for PING during the week), attended a lecture by 2006 Nobel Laureate in Physics (John Mather) and build a small optical telescope (from the Galileoscope project). Big kudos to Dae'Niya, Leykie, Yannick, Phuong and Monteze who asked "tuff" questions to Dr. Mather and Mohammad and Kayla who took time to have a short discussion with him afterwards.

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday

Second day at NRAO: students are building small circuits with play-doh and lightning up diodes, learning about the various constellations in an inflatable sky map balloon, soldering boards, designing and building a structure mimicking the Green Bank Telescope, tie dyeing shirts and having PHun at the swimming pool! 

 

 

Wednesday

The third day started really hard with all students sleeping but one (guess who??). Then lots of PHun with more circuit boards, data taking with the 40-foot telescope, looking for radio waves inside the building, meeting with NRAO scientists an egg drop contest and home made ice cream!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday

Final data analysis, meeting with scientists, cheques card game and a lecture about our planet and the solar system. Now it is time to wrap all this into a presentation for tomorrow evening!

 

 

 

Friday

The last day at the NRAO/GBT Site. After a training on using telescopes remotely and getting data from one in Australia, the PING students presented their week-long team projects. Following was a campfire on the lawn with smores (with yummies marshmallows, cookies and chocolate), live music and singing plus dances from the PING students themselves. The finale was a walk through the woods at night for a visit to the Green Bank Telescope that was light-up: what a scene!!!