AAPT Section News, July 2013
—Page 5
down to find the optimum nozzle length. And, they can put
tape (so it’s flat) onto the straw to act as a fin and see how
that affects the flight pattern. Finally, put a small-diameter
bendy straw into a larger-diameter straw, bend, and blow;
no dice. Block the end of the large straw by putting a “nose
cone” of tape on the end and blow – good results. Then put
fins on (the same way as before) and see what happens –
much better flight path!!
Then, attach to a Sunny D bottle (with a little rubber tubing)
and hit it and make a true rocket launcher:
You can wrap a piece of paper around a piece of narrow-
gauge PVC and improvise a nose cone and use as a blow
pipe, super results. Attach a bicycle innertube (used, get ‘em
from bike stores for free) using masking tape to the end of
the pvc pipe and put that on the sunny D bottle to make a
stomp rocket. They can go 50 yards!!
Paul Sherard
The Expanding Universe, a simple geometric model.
Paul showed us a graphic using standard drawing tools, but
I can’t reproduce that here, sorry. You just had to be there to
get the message.
—Mike Nassir, Section Representative
Idaho-Utah Section
The Section Meeting for the Idaho-Utah Section of the
American Association of Physics Teachers was held at
Utah Valley University March 15-16 2013. The meeting
was excellently organized by Phil Matheson, the section
President-Elect, and was attended by 64 people, 4 HS
Faculty, 26 College/University Faculty/Staff, and 34
students some of whom were jointly attending the
combined SPS Zone 15 meeting.
The program included the ever-popular Demonstration
Show, and a collection of contributed talks, a make-and-
take ferro-fluids activity, and the section business meeting
and annual section officer election.
The results of the election were as follows, with terms
from 3-17-13 to 5/31/14:
Farhang Amiri from Weber State rotated off the presidential
chain.
Brian Pyper, also the section representative, rotates from
President to Past President.
Phil Matheson, of Utah Valley University rotates from
President-Elect to President.
Kathryn Devine, of College of Idaho, rotates from Vice
President to President-Elect.
Larry Smith, of Snow College was elected Vice President.
This means that the section meeting next year (2014)
will be held at the College of Idaho in Caldwell, with
Kathryn Devine as the local organizer, and the following
year (2015) the section meeting will be held at Snow
College in Ephraim, UT, hosted by local organizer Larry
Smith.
—Brian Pyper, Section Representative
Illinois Section
The Illinois Section of AAPT held two local meetings in
2012. Our spring meeting was hosted by the University of
Illinois in Urbana, IL and our fall meeting was held jointly
with the Chicago Section at Joliet Junior College in Joliet,
IL.
The theme of the spring meeting was “Engage to
Excel”. Over 80 faculty, students, and guests participated
in workshops, invited, and contributed talks. Workshops
included “Mini Modeling” presented by Carl Wenning,
“Using Clickers to Engage Students in Class” presented
by Mayla Sanchez, and the cracker barrel discussion
“Entrepreneurial Science”. Invited talks were given by
Tony Liss (“The Large Hadron Collider: Probing the
Universe at the biggest science project ever”), Tim Stelzer
(“Engage to Excel: Opportunities and risks of the national
initiative to improve STEM education”), Mats Selen
(“Interactive Online Labs: Hands-on activities exactly
when you need them”), Rob White and Bill Sadler (“Flex
Paced Flipped Mastery Physics”), and Morten Lundsgaard
(“Support to Excel: Professional development for in-service
teachers”). Full program details are available at www.
isaapt.org/s12/isaapt.html.
Our winter meeting activities were centered around
the theme “Minds-On Physics.” Three workshops
were available for the attendees. Arduino Open-Source
