Page 29 - October 2010

students and faculty to acoustics as a suitable intro- duction to Physics for today’s iPod generation. Erica intro- duced the audience to the psy- chological and physiological effects of sound as an example of how acoustics spreads beyond the realms of Physics. David delivered a presenta- tion on the measurement and prediction state of the art for sound scattering from reflec- tive surfaces used in architec- tural acoustics.
The University Students’
Acoustics Poster Competition
(USAPC) was held on the last
day of the conference. The
three judges were professors Anthony Atchley (Penn State), Uwe Hansen, and Juan Arvelo. The first place award went to Billy Andre for his poster entitled “A pre-treatment planning strategy for High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) treatments.” Candido Diaz was awarded second place for his poster “Experimental quantification of acoustic scattering from diffusers: Reverberation chamber design and measure- ment.” The third place was awarded to Norman Philipp for the poster “Analysis of existing modular classroom acoustics for proposed addendum to ANSI standard S12.60-2002 on classroom acoustics.”
In addition to these events, an ASA exhibit booth was made available to welcome and inform curious faculty and students. Finally, Professor Hansen conducted acoustics demonstrations throughout the entire conference in the grand exhibit hall. The demonstration tables were occupied with several instruments including long springs, wine glass- es, shakers and plates forming Chladni patterns, tuning forks, laptops with spectral analysis software, an acoustic levitation instrument, and an active noise cancellation headset.
Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS)/ Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES) 2010 Conference
More recently, an ASA exhibition booth was installed at the joint conference of SACNAS and MAES. The 2010 SAC-
NAS/MAES National Conference was held at the Anaheim Convention Center from September 30 to October 3. This was the largest conference with 3196 registered attendees, 311 exhi- bition booths and 80 confer- ence sessions. SACNAS awarded 975 student travel scholarships while 875 gradu- ate and undergraduate stu- dents delivered oral and poster presentations of their research.
The ASA exhibit booth distributed acoustics litera- ture and membership forms in addition to earplugs with
storage containers, luggage tags, and sticky notepads bearing the ASA logo. Acoustics demonstrations were conducted at the ASA exhibit booth with springs, tuning forks, and sound pipes. ASA participation also included judging physics posters and mentoring students. Several students expressed interest in fields spanning from transducer engineering, musical acoustics, psychological acoustics, physical acoustics and bioacoustics, to mathematical and computational acoustics.
The conference’s focus on student support and network- ing resulted in an overwhelming positive feedback from stu- dents, professors, and exhibitors.
Open invitation
The committee also formed the 2010 Acoustics Music & Video (AMV) Student Competition to encourage students to develop electronic videos and audio pieces promoting acoustics to expose and attract new generations of future acousticians. The entrees from the top winners may be accessed at: http://acosoc.org/diversity/Diversity.html
An acoustics education resources segment was also added in an effort to assist in preparing and conducting acoustics demonstrations and introductory lectures at public schools, community colleges, and minority-serving institutions.
An invitation is extended to everyone who may wish to join the committee and contribute to future acoustics out- reach efforts.
Fig. 1. Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS)/ Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES) 2010 Conference banquet dinner and keynote address.
28 Acoustics Today, October 2010