Open House and Scholarship Competition

The open house today went very well! We had a good number of people involved - five high school seniors and various parental units came to check out Augie Physics, and four Augie physics club members and I came to show them what we're all about. Thanks for helping out Jake, Alaina, Adam, and Jess (in order of appearance)!!

First we did a quick presentation about physics and pre-engineering at Augustana. The visitors had lots of good questions about our program, classes, students, and lab equipment. When a parent asked about numbers of students, I brought up the list of current majors, and noticed something interesting: we average about 10 majors graduating per year, but currently the listing shows 16 seniors and 3 sophomores - quite a variation from the mean!

After the Q&A, the club memebers showed off some of the demo equipment ("toys") we use for our outreach program, and, of course, smashed some stuff frozen in liquid nitrogen! Everyone seemed to enjoy this part of the day - no surprise there!

Finally the prospective students took a scholarship test, based on introductory physics topics. Can't say that part was the most fun, but worth it to win a scholarship. Hope they all came away with something valuable, even if they don't win the scholarship!