Newsletter 2016/02
Dear Connecticut Section Member,
Thank-you for the good feedback on the first newsletter! We’ve had several good interactions, and I hope that they can continue.
Membership Reminder
If you have not renewed your membership for 2016, you have until February 20th. After that date, you will automatically lose your membership benefits.
Updates
New webmaster: Abdelrahman Hosny Ibrahim (abdelrahman.hosny@ieee.org), a postgraduate student at UConn, volunteered to look after our new website. Thank-you to Abdelrahman! Please get in touch if there’s anything you’d like to see added to the website.
New Young Professionals Chair: Saumya Sharma (saumya.sharma@us.abb.com), from ABB, volunteered to take up the Young Professionals group. Thank-you to Saumya! There will be a social event for planning the group’s activities, so look out for that.
Current Calendar of Events for 2016
All events will be published on Collabratec and our website.
Brief Reports on Past Events
10 Year Recognition Social (Invitation Only)
The section decided to recognize those members who have just achieved their 10th year of membership.To do this, we sent these members a business card holder with the IEEE logo and held a social at Eli’s on Whitney in Hamden for beer and a burger.
Congratulations to all those who have now achieved their 10 years of IEEE membership!
Two of our 10 year members, Paul Cappa and Tracy Juengst, attended the social along with several other members. The social was combined with some planning for the newly-formed Women in Engineering group for the Section.
“Make a Robot with Raspberry Pi and Scratch” workshops. Jan. 13, 16, 23, 30 and Feb. 6
Dr Biao Zhang and Prof. Haoyu Wang along with many other mentors presented this series of workshops to middle school children at the Noah Webster Public Library in West Hartford. The January 30th date had to be cancelled due to the library closing early for the #blizzard2016, but other dates were kept.
This workshop teaches children how to program in Scratch to control a GoPiGo robot. The robots had to be built from the kit during the workshop.
Below is a shot of all the participants who attended the third workshop on February 6th. Some participants are not there as not everyone could attend all days of the workshop.
Getting Started with Matlab
Prof. Bouzid Aliane conducted an introductory workshop on Matlab at the University of New Haven. The workshop was very successful with forty-five people attending: 22 IEEE members and 23 non-members.
Executive Committee meeting, Shelton HS.
The executive committee of the Section visited Shelton High School (home of the Gaelhawks 203 FIRST robotics team) on February 9th. It was exciting to see last year’s robot perform so well, and see the progress (4.5 weeks into a 6 week build period) for this year’s competition.
Below is a picture of last year’s robot.
Near Term Events
March 8th: Executive Committee meeting, Trinity College
The executive committee for the Section will be having its March meeting at Trinity College. See our events calendar for more details.
March 17: Connecticut Science & Engineering Fair Judging
A band of judges, led by Bill Wessman (b.wessman@ieee.org), will be awarding prizes totaling $1000 for IEEE-related prizes at the fair.
March 18 to 20: Entrepreneurs’ Network: Stamford Startup Weekend
The IEEE CT Section Entrepreneurs’ Network has negotiated discount rates for entry into the Stamford Startup Weekend. Please let us know if you plan on attending!
The discount rate is $29 per person, rather than the standard $75 per person.
To gain access to the reduced rate, use the link above or add the promotional code : IEEE-StamfordSW
March 28: “Auto-Transformer Fundamentals & Preparation of Transformer Specifications”, Eversource, Berlin CT.
March 29: “Auto-Transformer Fundamentals & Preparation of Transformer Specifications”, United Illuminating, Orange CT.
This workshop will be offered twice by the Power & Energy Society chapter : once at Eversource in Berlin and once at United Illuminating in Orange.
Professional Development Hours (PDHs) will be offered to all who attend the workshop.
April 6th: CMOC Workshop: The 25th Annual Connecticut Microelectronics and Optoelectronics Consortium (CMOC) Symposium will be held on Wednesday, April 6th at the Dodd Research Center at UConn’s Storrs campus. All undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in nanotechnology in electronics, photonics, biosensors, and energy sources are encouraged to present a paper on their projects. The Section sponsors prize money for students studying in Connecticut who present, so don’t miss out!
April 15-16: IEEE Region 1 Student Conference. CCSU has volunteered to host the 2016 IEEE Region 1 Student Conference! All Connecticut-based IEEE Student Members should try to attend! More information will be distributed shortly.
Future Events
April:
- 1 to 3 — Trinity College Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contest
- 6 — CMOC Symposium
- 12 — Executive Committee meeting.
- 15 to 16 — IEEE Region 1 Student Conference
- 30 — Connecticut Invention Convention (State Final Judges). CIC promotes STEM among elementary to middle school children. While the IEEE CT is not officially a sponsor, we support their mission, and would like to see if our members are interested to become involved.
- PES: “Induction & Permanent Magnet Machines applications with Inverters” @ UCONN (date TBD)
- AP/MTT/UFFC: :5th Annual DML tour (date TBD)
May:
- 10 — Executive Committee meeting.
June:
- 14 — Executive Committee meeting.
- Fellows Dinner 2016 (date TBD)
October:
November:
- 13 to 15 — Entrepreneurs’ Network: Startup Weekend New Haven (Reduced rates for IEEE members)
- R1 & R2 WIE Global Exchange conference in Boston area (date TBD)
December:
- 9 – Computer Science Education Week @ Fairfield University (CSEdWeek is held in recognition of the birthday of computing pioneer Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906)).
- Masuk High School Robotics Competition (Judges needed!)
The IEEE is your organization. The more you get involved the more you benefit, and the more we all benefit.
Please contact me, or any of the executive, if you want to see something added to our agenda!
Regards,
Peter J. Kootsookos,
CT Section Chair 2016-2017
Senior Member
Email: p.kootsookos@ieee.org
Cell: +1 860 543 5917
