Re: The year 2010-2011 for the Astronomy Club
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Shailesh Wankhede
Jul 2, 2010, 10:19:31 PM7/2/10
to COEP Astronomy Club
Hi Mohit,
I am completely agree with ur first idea and rest others. Lots of activities this year. But we need to manage time properly cause most of club members are in satellite team. About astronomy project: i think we should also give a thought on 'virtual telescope' which can be our technocraft project.
Hope we manage well this year!
On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 12:21 AM, akash ambulkar <ajaka...@gmail.com> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mohit Karve <lxq.i...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 1:35 PM
Subject: The year 2010-2011 for the Astronomy Club
To: Kshitija Deshpande <kbdes...@gmail.com>, Trupti Ranka <trupti...@gmail.com>, Prasanna Kulkarni <prass...@gmail.com>, Jayesh Mutha <jayeshm...@gmail.com>, Isha Nag <mast...@gmail.com>, Abhishek Bawiskar <adb2...@gmail.com>, Shrikant Vinchurkar <shrikantp...@gmail.com>, Nikit Dongaonkar <ndong...@gmail.com>, gokhale...@gmail.com, Aditya Nanavaty <adi1...@gmail.com>, Nishchay Mhatre <falcon...@gmail.com>, Priya Ganadas <priyag...@gmail.com>, Varad Deshmukh <varad.d...@gmail.com>, Aadinath Harihar <aadinat...@gmail.com>, Anuradha Ganesh <anu.keepit...@gmail.com>, Mukesh Angrakh <mukesh....@gmail.com>, Akash Ambulkar <ajaka...@gmail.com>, Gautam Akiwate <gautam....@gmail.com>, Pavitra Shetty <pavitras...@gmail.com>
Hi,
I wanted some ideas for what we can do to re-popularise the astronomy club in the college. For one reason or another, the past year has been disastrous. The coming year is critically important for us to bring the club back on its feet. With that in mind, I have a couple of ideas. I would like opinions from everyone (especially the seniors - Kshitija, Trupti, Prasanna, Snehal) regarding the thoughts I'm about to put forward. Further, I'd like your inputs and ideas. My thoughts:
1. We aren't coming across as something relevant to engineering
I feel that there are some people who have a moderate interest in astronomy, but not enough for them to attend on purely that interest. I feel we should have small engineering projects (related to astronomy) that the juniors can do. Some of the possible projects could be:
> Design of a dobsonian mount for the 12" telescope (Mech/ Prod/ Civil)
> Design of a regular alt-az mount for 6" telescopes (we can use this for future telescope workshops) (Mech/ Prod/ Civil)
> Design of electronic control system for 12" telescope (Electrical/ Electronics/ Comp Sci/ IT)
2. We haven't been regular in our lectures
This has specifically happened over the past year. We have not conducted lectures regularly, and we can't expect people to be interested if we ourselves aren't. We should have a systematic series of lectures that are planned well in advance. Make sure that the topic for the coming week's lecture is declared in the current meeting. We should arrange lectures to be given by the batches that have passed out.
3. Regular events
As always, we should have Quiztronomy, the planetarium and the two star parties we do every year. Maybe we can add another flagship event? Any ideas?
That's all I can think of at the moment. I'd really like your thoughts and inputs. We have to recover from the past year and take the club to new heights.
NB: Make sure all of you use the "Reply to all" option so that everybody knows what you're saying.
Cheers
Mohit
--
A thorough gentleman is one who is never unintentionally rude.
jayesh mutha
Jul 3, 2010, 3:00:15 AM7/3/10
to Shailesh Wankhede, COEP Astronomy Club
Hi all,
I completely agree with Kshitija, to keep up the interest in astronomy, apart from conducting regular lectures and taking other projects in hand what we must focus right now is on more of amateur astronomy.
Not to forget we do not have enough members or to be very specific handful of people who are looking into club's matters. Most of the people are engaged in satellite, few of them do not participate in some of the events because his/her friend is not participating and remaining people for some or the other reason fail to do so. In such a situation taking up some another project would be little risky.
Let us first find out how many people from second year and third year do we have to manage club's activities then we can come up with some ideas. At the end as Kshitija said we all will be really happy to mentor you guys.
Cheers,
Jayesh
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trupti ranka
Jul 3, 2010, 7:02:25 AM7/3/10
to COEP Astronomy Club, Mohit Karve, Prasanna Kulkarni, Jayesh Mutha, Isha Nag, Abhishek Bawiskar, Shrikant Vinchurkar, Nikit Dongaonkar, gokhale...@gmail.com, Aditya Nanavaty, Nishchay Mhatre, Priya Ganadas, Varad Deshmukh, Aadinath Harihar, Anuradha Ganesh, Mukesh Angrakh, Akash Ambulkar, Gautam Akiwate, Pavitra Shetty, Kshitija Deshpande
In past two years we have recognized that the main problem is lack of people who do the actual work. Its not that we didn't have ideas in previous 2 years. Though it seems that there are many people in club, very few can devote substantial time to do club work. It may look like lots of club people have got involved in the satellite work and hence there is sudden crunch of available man power. But satellite project just hastened the inevitable. When Jayesh was the secretary we didn't have satellite project in full fledge as it is now, still we were facing the same problem.
It first seemed that the juniors were not very motivated as the batch of jayesh - mohit and co. This is true. But the thing is their batch was exceptionally motivated and to except such people in so many numbers every year is foolish. These people are very independent, they come with their own ideas and even execute them till the very end!! like mohit handled quiztronomy. Jayesh picked up messier marathon and became quite an expert in it; good enough to train juniors. Baviskar picked up astrophotography on his own and did quite good. The club was purely running on such motivation and talent to execute ideas.
Most people cannot come with ideas so easily and even if they do, they don't have the slightest clue about how to execute them. When we were looking for club secretary last year the biggest concern most juniors had is that they have no idea about how to run things, it will become a great burden on them and they won't be able to do it. This is because they themselves saw that very few people are running around to do things and they didn't want such burden. As mohit puts it there was no division of labour.
This is where I think we should not have any year long activity like lectures. Even 12" work should be finished in a month. We should break everything like a 1-3 week activity max. Each activity should be very clearly defined. Only those who really want to organize things should think of plan to execute each activity. Rest of the volunteers will be specifically told what to do till the very last detail. In all other big activities like satellite or BAJA the most important reason why students work or devote time is that the objective is very clear and they know exactly why they are doing a particular thing. Even if people want to work hard for the club, first they should know where to put all their efforts. Unless the activity does not get very focused and short term, juniors are confused and leave the club slowly. For each activity only 3-4 people should meet about how to do things. After execution has been decided then call volunteers. When you speak to volunteers tell them exactly what they have to do and why. Amongst these volunteers if you find a few good juniors, you can call them in plan meeting for next activity. Students don't like to be associated with an extra curricular activity for the whole year as it might affect their studies. if they know they have to work for a particular thing for say only 2 weeks max then they might even work overnight for it. For regatta/cultural also even though some people may work for whole year most participants practice for only 2 months max.
The only way that we can attract and retain more juniors is by reinventing the way we run the club. Right now the club is still known in college and we also have a handful of good ideas. As jayesh pointed out take a census about how many students will like to work for club even if its just for a month or so. For making the club more meaningful to the students of college in general, it is important that we associate ourselves with IUCAA-NCRA. This will permanently solve the problem that our club does not have much engineering relevance. Luckily few people in these places are still showing interest in knowing our club. The only other college based astronomy club that has survived for years is that of Ferguson college. This is because they have strong ties with IUCAA- NCRA and the club has become very relevant to career of students there.Though we may not be able to make the club relevant for students' careers we can surely make it relevant for their CVs!!
Trupti
It first seemed that the juniors were not very motivated as the batch of jayesh - mohit and co. This is true. But the thing is their batch was exceptionally motivated and to except such people in so many numbers every year is foolish. These people are very independent, they come with their own ideas and even execute them till the very end!! like mohit handled quiztronomy. Jayesh picked up messier marathon and became quite an expert in it; good enough to train juniors. Baviskar picked up astrophotography on his own and did quite good. The club was purely running on such motivation and talent to execute ideas.
Most people cannot come with ideas so easily and even if they do, they don't have the slightest clue about how to execute them. When we were looking for club secretary last year the biggest concern most juniors had is that they have no idea about how to run things, it will become a great burden on them and they won't be able to do it. This is because they themselves saw that very few people are running around to do things and they didn't want such burden. As mohit puts it there was no division of labour.
This is where I think we should not have any year long activity like lectures. Even 12" work should be finished in a month. We should break everything like a 1-3 week activity max. Each activity should be very clearly defined. Only those who really want to organize things should think of plan to execute each activity. Rest of the volunteers will be specifically told what to do till the very last detail. In all other big activities like satellite or BAJA the most important reason why students work or devote time is that the objective is very clear and they know exactly why they are doing a particular thing. Even if people want to work hard for the club, first they should know where to put all their efforts. Unless the activity does not get very focused and short term, juniors are confused and leave the club slowly. For each activity only 3-4 people should meet about how to do things. After execution has been decided then call volunteers. When you speak to volunteers tell them exactly what they have to do and why. Amongst these volunteers if you find a few good juniors, you can call them in plan meeting for next activity. Students don't like to be associated with an extra curricular activity for the whole year as it might affect their studies. if they know they have to work for a particular thing for say only 2 weeks max then they might even work overnight for it. For regatta/cultural also even though some people may work for whole year most participants practice for only 2 months max.
The only way that we can attract and retain more juniors is by reinventing the way we run the club. Right now the club is still known in college and we also have a handful of good ideas. As jayesh pointed out take a census about how many students will like to work for club even if its just for a month or so. For making the club more meaningful to the students of college in general, it is important that we associate ourselves with IUCAA-NCRA. This will permanently solve the problem that our club does not have much engineering relevance. Luckily few people in these places are still showing interest in knowing our club. The only other college based astronomy club that has survived for years is that of Ferguson college. This is because they have strong ties with IUCAA- NCRA and the club has become very relevant to career of students there.Though we may not be able to make the club relevant for students' careers we can surely make it relevant for their CVs!!
Trupti
Hi Mohit,
I am completely agree with
ur first idea and rest others. Lots of activities this year. But we
need to manage time properly cause most of club members are in satellite
team. About astronomy project: i think we should also give a thought on
'virtual telescope' which can be our technocraft project.
Hope we manage well this year!
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Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 12:21 AM, akash ambulkar <ajaka...@gmail.com>
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Hi all,
I completely agree with Kshitija, to
keep up the interest in astronomy, apart from conducting regular
lectures and taking other projects in hand what we must focus right now
is on more of amateur astronomy.
Not to forget we do not have enough members or to be very specific
handful of people who are looking into club's matters. Most of the
people are engaged in satellite, few of them do not participate in some
of the events because his/her friend is not participating and remaining
people for some or the other reason fail to do so. In such a situation
taking up some another project would be little risky.
Let us first find out how many people from second year and third
year do we have to manage club's activities then we can come up with
some ideas. At the end as Kshitija said we all will be really happy to
mentor you guys.
Cheers,
Jayesh
On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 8:49 PM, Kshitija Deshpande <kbdes...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Mohit,I am happy to see that you are coming up with ideas for this year..Of the different ideas you and Trupti have put forth, I think projects and lectures are an essential part of the club. I suggest we should have more amateur astronomy related activities though: more star parties, meteor shower observations, occultations, variable star observations and even a messier marathon. You need to know that these are some of the events which keep up the interest and awe in astronomy. Needless to say, you have the Khanashi site always available (I am asked now and then about you guys..); if that place is too polluted, find another one, but I suggest you should have these activities more frequently.I would also like to know who all are actively leading the club from the current third and final year batch. The reason I asked this is, we can have a small mentorship program at the college itself. The first and second year batch students are extremely enthusiastic in lots of ways. If the right string is pulled, we can convert this enthu in some sort of fruitful work. Third year and final year students can mentor the 1st and 2nd yearites for different in-house projects. All you guys need to do, is to encourage them and allure them to do their own research, tell them that this is their project so ultimately they are going to be the experts, in the mean while, you can suggest them some relevant references, give them resources if available, have discussions where they can discuss their questions with you. Even if you don't know much about certain topic, you certainly have experience to give them some directions through little discussions. All you need is to do is to devote a little time. In this whole process, even you will learn about their research. I think this ultimately is a win-win situation. I have heard some similar successful student-initiated programs going on in IITs for a lot many years now.. We can definitely help you guys if you need any help. But, you physically being present will make more sense for you to mentor the first and second year students. Ans again, we will be happy to mentor you guys, if you let us know.All, let me know what think about this..Kshitija
On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 7:59 AM, trupti ranka <trupti...@gmail.com> wrote:Hello Mohit,
Thanks for taking lead for coming year and as you have stated this one will be critical.
1) Engineering projects at NCRA:
a) NCRA has developed a small radio telescope for students (~Rs 2000). http://www.ncra.tifr.res.in/~rpl/asrt.htm we can try holding a workshop for this in collaboration with NCRA.
b) NCRA in collaboration with IUCAA has started a radio physics lab (RPL). http://www.ncra.tifr.res.in/~rpl/
This lab is specifically for popularization of radio astronomy amongst students. The lab is new and is looking for college students to work on various projects in it. They hold a two day weekend session for IISER, Pune students for some hands on experience in radio astronomy. You can contact them and see if they want to conduct something like this for our club. This can be another flagship event. Plus if things go well you can get a six months project for club students there. Some of these projects can be converted to mini-projects required by various depts in college in 6th sem.
2) Projects at IUCAA
Nishchay wanted to start variable star observation in college. Arvind sir will be able to help in this regard. I met him a few days ago and we discussed specifically how IUCAA's science centre can help in this regard. Basically he is ready to conduct a 10 day workshop with complete theory sessions and measurement of atleast 1-2 popular stars. The science centre had lots of good equipment for optical astronomy. If students can learn to use some of this it will be really good. This workshop should be conducted somewhere in dec during break after 1st sem. Later if anybody is still interested in variable star observations then that student can further continue working at science center throughout the 2nd sem.
3) Lectures:
The cirriculum idea was good but maybe to challenging to implement. We should not conduct lecture once every week as its strenuous on everyone and no one can come continuously. Rather we can convert this into another lecture series event. 3-4 club members can prepare lectures and give lectures continuously for one week in 1st sem (say evening 6 to 8 pm) and one week in second sem.
Instead of 1-2 guest lectures in mindspark, we can have an astronomy guest lecture series on a weekend. Ferguesson had once conducted a very good astronomy school. For 2 days various scientist from IUCAA gave lectures at fergusson. On second day, in evening they had a career in astronomy guidance session with a panel of scientists and later a sky show at IUCAA.
12" telescope.
The only thing I have to say is make a damn good documentation of the scope. Right now no one other than people whole have actually built it can handle it.
The major work of the club can be to organize various events. In first sem say 1 lecture series by club member and one by IUCAA-NCRA scientists, planetarium and one session at RPL. In second sem you can have one session at IUCAA's science center 2 star parties one more lecture session by club students and quiztronomy. When jayesh was the secretary we had this telescope handling session. We should continue with those. For students who are really interested we can have telescope making workshop in beginning of summer vacation. Its a costly affair and should be done only if students develop an interest in astronomy by end of the year.
If we break the club activities as various small events it should we less difficult to run it. The only person who is required in all events is secretary and 2-3 extra volunteers.Good publicity will be very importnat in most of the events. Also for events to be conducted at IUCAA and NCRA campus, only 1-2 people will be required to organize them and register students. Rest work will be done by people at IUCAA or NCRA.
For events with IUCAA and NCRA I suggest you contact Arvind sir at IUCAA and Prof. B.C Joshi at NCRA in month of july only so that you have enough time to plan things. These people will give you many other ideas for running the club.
Trupti
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