Back from Vacation

My wife and I went on vacation last week and I'll be sharing pictures and stories soon. To give you a hint as to where we went and what we were up to:

2013 In Review: GSA in Denver

Okay, last up for the year in review (I'm not going through spring/summer things, because vacation).

In late October I journeyed out to Denver for the annual Geological Society of America meeting. This year I had some special projects planned. First, I brought along my Kinect scanner - and Steve Gough of Little River Research and Design was kind enough to let me set it up on one of their stream tables on display. Second, I brought our high speed camera to catch the Emflume in operation.

There was a Mythbusters exhibit at the DMNH while I was there (some might call this a running gag for the year)

A very Daffy-Duck looking hadrosaur.

Went on a photography field trip, got to give my tilt-shift lens a workout.

The camera and lighting of the flume.

Just like any good party, every flat surface is covered in empties and wounded soldiers.

The Kinect scanner - mounted on a lighting stand and placed over the table. The computer is hooked up to the large monitor in the background so people could see the live 3D image.

This is what the stream table looked like after a day of visitors.

Steve hoping the day would go well. Or appealing to the powers of Arduino to get his time-lapse slider to work properly.

Ron Schott (fellow UW-Madison alum and one of the few students who were there longer than I was) was trying out his Google Glasses.

Which I got to try out. A little awkward when worn over regular spectacles, but I can see some potential uses for the technology for science outreach.

gx8 1917-Emflume9-sed-trans from Matt Kuchta on Vimeo.


gx8 1917-Emflume7-paddle from Matt Kuchta on Vimeo.


gx8 1917-Emflume10-paddle from Matt Kuchta on Vimeo.

2013 In Review: TED Ed

Another great thing this year was getting to go to New Orleans and talk to a bunch of Middle and High School students about science. I gave a 6 minute talk about "sand" and got to talk with a bunch of motivated students.

There's something special about those three red letters and the little orange mic that makes a person feel like they're giving a "real" talk.

Obligatory selfie during rehearsals.

I'm glad my shoes matched my shirt - otherwise it would have looked like I was just this hawaiian-shirt clad torso.

Photo by Ryan Lash

Photo by Ryan Lash

I also gave students instructions on proper hand-lens technique. Remember folks, hold the lens to your eye and bring the object into focus.

Photo by Mike Femia

My trip was made more interesting by the fact that I had one of the worst head colds in my life right before I left. I could barely talk and my head was so stuffy it sounded like I was talking to people inside a diving helmet that had been filled with jell-o. But I managed to get enough rest and got through my talk and survived the first intermission talking to students - my voice totally gave out during the second intermission - which was too bad. I wish I could have talked to more kids about geology. But the table next to me had enough cool whale parts to keep kids entertained far better than I could with a few rocks and bags of sand.

Anatomist Joy Reidenberg with her table of whale parts. Those are 8' long sheets of baleen (blue whale I think)

Homologous structures FTW!

Big crowd at the Civi Theater. Those screens on the balcony ledge were there so we could see our slides without turning our backs to the audience. The red light between them showed how much time was left.

Did I mention that Ashton Kutcher was the secret guest speaker?

That's some Bass! from Matt Kuchta on Vimeo.

16-year-old DJ Cole Plante's presentation came with plenty of low frequency rhythm. Here's a water bottle sitting next to one of the balcony lights. The waves were generated by the bass line of Cole's music mix.

I had a blast - thanks to the TED team for making it fun for those presenting. I got to meet physics blogger Rhett Allain, share a cab ride from the airport with robot scientist James McLurkin, talk photography with Jonathan Mannion, and share a cab ride back to the airport with the head of Pixar's Research Group. There were several "kids" that gave talks, too - although "young adult" really is appropriate here. I can't imagine what it's like to be 14 years old and get national recognition for the transformative/innovative things they've already done (in some cases since they were eight).

2013 In Review: Mythbusting

As the calendric transition into 2014 draws nigh, many of us go through some of the highlights (or lowlights) from the past year. This year brought with it some absolutely wonderful things.

First on my list is the "Behind the Myths" stage show that my wife and I went to a few weeks ago. This was the second tour they did for this show and it finally rolled into a theater near me. In this case the State Theater in downtown Minneapolis.

The Marquee.

Before the show - they had some promo vids for the upcoming season of Mythbusters as well as some info about the Tested.com website.

I got the chance to go up on stage - they wanted an "athletic" type to participate in one of their demos. I  wish I had brought something for Adam to sign while I was up there. Oh well...

I'm not going to spoil the actual demo, but you can get an idea of what it was based on these photos.

I have no idea what Adam and Jamie were telling the audience at this point - I was trying to pedal and the poncho was blocking my hearing.

I ended up "losing" the contest. But getting drenched with a water balloon onstage with Adam and Jamie was appropriate on many levels.

Demonstrating phonebook friction. I have been meaning to blog/demo this idea for a while now.

Some of the slow-motion demos they were doing. They were using a camera manufactured by the same company (NAC) as the one we have here in our department.

The show finale included a lot of paintballs. And a volunteer/target suited up in plate armor. Notice the person-sized gap in paintball spatter on the lexan shield.

All in all it was a great show. As a science educator/communicator, there were things I thought they could have done differently/better, but that didn't detract from the overall quality of the show. It was, after all, first and foremost entertainment. It also is a promotional venue for Mythbusters and Tested.com - so there are the obligatory commercial aspects that accompanied the show itself - both in terms of show clips and merchandise.

The central theme of the show was a fascination with the nature of science. Experimentation, data collection, testing ideas, and verification. But also a love of the process and of the physical world around us. They also emphasized how their show had a positive impact on people who had traits on the Asperger's Spectrum - something that I've heard them mention before. It reminded me that these kinds of shows can serve as the gateway to learning.

They don't have the depth and breadth that are really necessary for a full education, but they get people excited about the concepts. This excitement develops the internal motivation for further learning. And given the emphasis on external motivation in our educational system (like federally mandated testing), programs that encourage students to learn for themselves are important.

Happy Holidays!

For the last couple years, I've taken time during finals week (once the exams were graded) to shoot some holiday-themed slow motion video. I had found some clear glass christmas tree ornaments that seemed perfect for smashing. I rigged up a simple "Newtons Cradle" and experimented with just getting them to swing back and forth. The conservation of momentum in these collisions is pretty complex, but fascinating to watch.

I recommend watching this full screen:
 Newton's Cradle from Matt Kuchta on Vimeo.
Mostly filmed at 1,000 fps with memrecam gx-8.

Music by "Live Action Fez" http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Live_Action_Fezz/A_Very_Badgerland_Christmas_2011/Live_Action_Fezz_-_A_Very_Badgerland_Christmas_2011_-_15_Carol_of_the_Bells

The stage was backlit using a sheet of white acrylic and a 500W tungsten lamp.

Satisfying glass ornament carnage.

To get the balls to break predictably, I took a bit of corundum and scratched a little "X" at the impact point.

Unnatural Histories: The Lonely Mountain - Part 6

If you've missed the other bits, be sure to check the rest of the series:
Part 1: http://pascals-puppy.blogspot.com/2013/12/unnatural-histories-lonely-mountain.html
Part 2: http://pascals-puppy.blogspot.com/2013/12/unnatural-histories-lonely-mountain_16.html
Part 3: http://pascals-puppy.blogspot.com/2013/12/unnatural-histories-lonely-mountain_9632.html
Part 4: http://pascals-puppy.blogspot.com/2013/12/unnatural-histories-lonely-mountain_1042.html
Part 5: http://pascals-puppy.blogspot.com/2013/12/unnatural-histories-lonely-mountain_5911.html

Okay, so far I've proposed that the Lonely Mountain is the eroded remnant of the intrusive igneous and hydrothermal component of an ancient arc-volcanic system. Going back to the earlier part about the Misty Mountains, we can now look at this mountain system with a slightly different view. The Misty Mountains is our currently active collisional tectonic feature. The Ered Mithrin could be made of reactivated sutures (from various accreted terranes as Forodwaith and Rhovanion converged on each other) plus erosional highs of more resistant rocks formed through earlier tectonic activities.

What I like about this model is that it doesn't require plate tectonics to be "active" everywhere all at once. Not every feature we see on earth is a result of currently active tectonic processes. Many features are the remnants of past activity. Think of them as a kind of of tectonic "fossil" that has survived simply by not being completely eroded away.

So that has me wondering: do Dwarves or Dragons use a tectonic model of economic geology to decide where they want to live?