OPINION IIT’s confession booth is back in action! Page 2 CAMPUS OTS reveals the results from their annual Technlogy Survey. Page 3 ABE We’ve got a buttload of flash game reviews this week! Student newspaper of the Illinois Institute of Technology since 1928 Kilpatrick, Sigma Xi lectures expose students to new, stimulating concepts Utsav Gandhi CAMPUS EDITOR IIT students were exposed to a couple of fantastic great opportunities to hear from and discuss ideas with some great minds over the last couple of weeks, with two annual lectures being held to celebrate the rigor of IITs academic and research components. The Department of Chemistry’s annual Kilpatrick Lecturer was Dr. Daniel Nocera, Harvard professor of Energy, inventor of the “Artificial Leaf): and the IIT Research Day/Sigma Xi Lecturer was noted science photographer Felice Frankel. Held on a rainy afr ternoon on April 17, the annual Kilpatrick Lecture continued the legacy of IIT alumni Martin and Mary Kilpatrick who have left huge imprints on IIT’s academic portfolio, and whose legacy in cludes this flagship annual lecture bringing to campus some of the country’s best minds in research. Stating the importance of the Chemistry Department at HT, CSL Dean Betts mentioned its renewed presence on campus integrated with the Lewis College of Human Sciences, which would be quite a throwback to its campus history of recently retired Professor Peter Lykos, having played a crucial role in starting the Computer Science Department with the revolution ary field of computational chemisr try. He then introduced Dr. Daniel Nocera, Harvard Professor of En ergy, who he called a “true scientist [in his efforts to] to improve the immediate world around him and the global community." The Artifir cial Leaf, his creation, has been named as one of the top “Inventions of the Year" by TIME magazine in 2011 and has been highlighted prominently in na tional media. Dr. Nocera began his mlk by stating that technology schools are becoming increasingly out come oriented, meaning that they are coming up with revolutionary insighm in research by working backwards from the desired outcome. He said that his work environment at Harvard allows him to colr laborate with interdisciplinary teams, and he highly recommends those scenarios ifwe are to bring about significant changes in our approach to thinking. He said that he had started working on the artificial leaf at the age of 22, his primary motivation was wanting to invent something you could drop into the water that would split it. He said that intrinsically every thing is a chemistry problem; and that today’s Ann thropocene is seeing us interfere with natural earth systems. He recommends that we need to move to the ‘Sustainocene’ . away from unsustainable, widr ening gaps between the haves and the have nots. Access to food, water and security aside, energy sen curity predictions say that we will need 16TW more by 2050, counting 3 billion more people, all in the emerging economy. So, how do we ‘do’ science for all these extra people? Suddenly, the fastest, biggest, tiniest, and the best is not the way to go forward. Cost is the first issue: we need something cheap, lightweight and easily manufactured. We need carbon neutral energy sources and a distributed system of energy to reach these people. In academics, we don’t have to worry about politics and the stock market. Rather, the key for any renewable energy is storage. Compressing air energy storage and batteries are not going to help 6 billion people. His artificial leaf, a playing cardrsized device is made up of cheap materialsisilicon, coV balt and nickel mostlyiand when placed in a conr tainer of water and exposed to sunlight, it generates bubbles of oxygen and hydrogen. Those gases can be collected and storedimuch more easily than the electricity produced by a photovoltaic solar celli and then used to generate power through afuel cell. The Sigma Xi Lecture was delivered via Skype conference by Science photographer Felice Frankel, a research scientist in the Center for Materir als Science and Engineering at MIT. Collaborating with scientists, designers and engineers across a host of disciplines, she creates images and graphics for journal submissions, presentations and publications to advance the public understanding of science. Her books include Envisioning Science: The Design and Craft of the Science Image, No Small Matter: Science on the Nanoscale, coiauthored with George Whitesides, On the Surface of Things: Images of the Extraordinary in Science, also coiauthored with G. M. Whitesides (who, coincidentally, was last year’s Kilpatrick Lecturer). Her most recent book, coauthored with Angela DePaCe, is Visual Strater gies, A Practical Guide to Graphics for Scientists and Engineers. She started off by saying that visual representations are explanr atory or exploratory, and that good representation needs good design. Fundamentally, representations are RErpresentations: they are interprer tations, decisions, and clarifications. They need to make the bystander look. Good art also almost always needs good writing to accompany it, and by default, and good art also goes beyond just making the bysmnder look . it shows him/her the process that is be ing explained. She also made a case for using meMphors and simplistic arr rows to give the viewer some room to breathe and the idea of using interacV tive graphics to layer data, giving the user the ability to decide what data they want to look at. Finally, she stressed the impor tance of collaborating on visual representations, to look and critique each others work on representar tions together. Researchers need to communicate with designers, who need to have a curiosity. The Sigma Xi event included a poster competition with 49 posters from CSL and ACE students. About 35 faculty members volunteered as judges. The Undergraduate Division winners were Eric Faurie, Ali Riaz, Abdulrhman Arnaout, and Emilie Woog. all from ECE; and the SingaXi Excelr lence in Research and Scholarship Award recipient was BME grad student Bin Iiang. The poster contest winners were Chris Barth (Biomed. Eng.) MicroV structural Integrity of Brain White Matter in Nonr Demented Older Adults Associated with Frequency of Cognitive Activity in Late Life (3rd place), Chrisr topher Stovall (MMAE) Characterizing Turbulent Gusts in an Urban Environment for Use in Micro Air Vehicle Applications (2nd place) and the team of Ab dulrhman Arnaout, Emilie Woog. Ali Riaz and Eric Faurie (Elec. and Comp. Eng.) RF Measurements to Support Dynamic Radio Spectrum Sharing. The Graduate winners were Bo Hu (Chemistry) CrH activation by heterogeneous single site Fe(H) silica supported catalyst (3rd place), Elif Bayrak (Chem. and Bio. Eng.) MultirAgent Systems for Modeling Vascularization and Tissue Growth within Porous Biodegradable Scaffolds (2nd place), and Sahar Hendabadi (MMAE) A Novel Technique to Identify Transport Templates in the Human Left Ventricle Using Doppler Echocardiography and Computar tional Modeling (lst place). Photos courtesy of Office ofProvostfor Research &Abdurhlman Arnaout TUESD Y APRIL 30, 2013 | Issue 12 Volume 175 technewsiit.com OPINION 2 SGA 3 CAMPUS 3-6 AErE 6 SPORTS 1 ||T high school outreach efforts include building, math competitions Luis Larco TECHN EWS WRITER During their undergraduate studies at the university, IIT Presidentia1 Scho1ars commit to a significant community service project in the areas ofScience, Technoiogy, Engineering, and Mathematr ics. These outreach initiatives are intended to enrich and bui1d capacity the academic options of students in both the HT/Bronzeviiie/Chicago area and their sending and nominating communities. As part of his IIT Presidentia1 Scho1arship, Luis Larco, a Miami Dade Co11ege graduate, initiated a series of competir tions for Chicago high schoo1s. HT Buildrit Competition (www.iit. edu/~tbp/buildrit/) is an app1ied science competition where teams competed against each other to design and bui1d the best so1ution to an engineering probe 1em using the materia1s provided. The competition required no preparation prior to the competition day. It was hosted on Saturday, Apri1 6th, at HT’s main campus, bringing 11 teams from 7 different high schoo1s in Chicago (42 students). This year, the teams had to design and construct a cargo boat that is as efr hcient as possib1e, based upon the ratio ofmass he1d / mass ofthe boat, before any water touches the load ing cup. The winning teams received a trophy and were recognized during the awards ceremony Team IHSCA Power Buiiders from Instituto Hea1th Sciences Career stood first, Team Soaring SHPE from Benito Iuarez Community Academy were the runnersnup, and Team Su11ivan House from Su11ivan House High Schoo1/Team Undefined from UNO Charter High Schoo1 stood third with a technica1 tie. This competition is a studentrled projr ect, sponsored by the Armour Co11ege of Engineer ing, the HT Chapter ofTau Beta Pi, and the Oflioe of StudentAccess, Success and Diversity Initiatives, and had 20 HT engineering students vo1unteering. The HT High SchooiMathematics Come petition (www.iit.edu/~mathdub/hscompetition/) was hosted on Saturday, Apri1 20th, bringing 73 stun dents from 9 different schoo1s in Chicago. This come petition is open to an secondary schoo1s, pub1ic and private, in Chicago. A11 secondary schoo1 students are e1igib1e to participate, a1though it is recommended on1y for those who have had courses up to prercalr cu1us a1gebra, and trigonometry or higher. The com, petition is divided into two evaluations: an individuai exam and a team exam. A maximum oftwo teams are a11owed per schooL each consisting of a five or 1ess students. However, the schoo1s are a11owed to bring as many students to participate in the individuai exam. The event was sponsored by Woifram Research, who donated 18 Woifram Mathematica 9 1icenses (15 for the top three teams and 3 for the top 3 individuai winners), as we11 as some other fun items, including Woiframs dodecahedrons and posters. The winning individua1s were Christor pher Shroba from Marist High Schoo1 (first p1ace, with 25/26 points), Yoonho Nam from Marist High Schoo1 tied with Iames Costin from Marist High Schoo1 (second, with 24/26 points), Kathy Ulaszek from Marist High Schoo1 tied with Mark Triezenburg from Marist High Schoo1 with 23/26 points for third p1ace. The winning teams were Team Yoon Nam from Marist High Schooi, Team Redhawks from Marist High Schoo1 and Team Two from Lindbiom Math 8r Science Academy High Schoo1 for first, second and third p1ace respectiveiy This competition was not just a great event for the student participating, but it was also great for their teachers/coaches. Whiie the students were taking the team exam, we had our Math C1ub advisor, Professor Iohn Erickson from the App1ied Mathematics department, 1eading a training semir nar for the teachers on how to so1ve the competition prob1ems. This event was cosponsored by the Apr p1ied Mathematics Department, the HT Math C1ub and the Oflice ofStudent Success, Access, and Diverr sity Initiatives. Both of these events were considered a success not just for HT and the high schoo1s pare ticipating, but a1so for our Chicago community. The organizer p1ans on hosting them again next year and a1so adding a new competition: The 111inois State Mathematics 01ympics for TworYear Co11eges in the state oininois, bringing community co11ege students on a Saturday to IIT to participate in an intense mathr ematics competition, and hoping to award the first p1ace individua1winner with a transfer scho1arship to HT.