Illinois Math and Science Academy Chapter

This is the wiki-homepage of the Illinois Math and Science Academy Chapter. We are similar to a University Chapter; however, we are a high school in Aurora, Illinois.

XOs on campus

There are currently 2 XOs on IMSA's campus, but more are coming with the mid-January order. If you are interested in playing with a machine, contact April-Hope or Scott Swanson. You can also just come up to ITS (CNS) sometime during the day, usually before 4 or 4:30.

• 1 machine with Scott, owned by Scott
• 1 machine with IMSA, floating around campus. Ask up in ITS for it.

Projects

Currently, we are working on a few separate experiments during our intersession period (week of January 7-11). (More to come tomorrow)

EKG

ssb005, gheller, cdodson, and laugh are building a simple differential amplifier to serve as a protection circuit to keep the XO from electrical surge or misreading from the equipment. Once this is completed, they will start building an OpenEKG which will monitor electrical signals generated by the heart.

Work with the Measure Activity

Test for Pitch: recording how to use measure--how to make sounds, etc.

1. We will make a noise somehow using an object or ourselves.

• Clapping
• Whistling
• Talking
• Bongos
• Tone Generator
• Guitar?
• Dropping a chair off a balcony
• Running
• The Cafeteria
• Music in General
• XO boot noise

2. We will measure the noise using the Measure Activity.

3. We will record all of this.

4. The method that we will use to record will explain how to do an experiment for students who have never been introduced to the scientific method.

Instruments and the same pitch, recording their sounds or noticing how Measure reacts to different instruments on the same pitch.

A clock/time Activity

jrock, j26774

Programmer mockup

We aim to create an Activity that can be used to explore different aspects of telling time. We want this activity to display time in analog, digital, and "natural" forms. The "natural" form will be an image of a sun or moon arcing across the sky, rising and setting as the day progresses. This is more than a simple clock; the user will be able to grab any element and readjust it, which will update each of the other elements. In this manner, hopefully the children can explore and understand different methods of telling time.

We would also like to somehow implement support for each timezone; perhaps getting the timezone and performing some algorithm to reasonably guess the position of the sun in the sky at different times of day based on latitude and longitude.

• Analog
• Digital
• Tree - a "natural" way to show time with the sun and moon "orbiting" around a tree
• drag-able clock hands and sun/moon
• text input on the digital
• toggle between 12 and 24 hour digital display
• support for different time zones

Contact Information

Try April-Hope or Scott.