What is this project about?
This is a citizen science project organised by Space Australia. As part of their vision, they wanted to ignite in the general public the passion and inspiration that Australia’s love with radio astronomy has lead the country to be world leaders.
Space Australia then put the call out to everyone on Twitter and Instagram and asked if anyone wanted to join them on this exciting mission, and before they knew it there were 35 teams from across the country joining the project from Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Canberra, New South Wales and Queensland.
So we here in the IT team at DOW thought wouldn't it be great having our students building radio telescopes that we could use, as amateurs, from our own schools.
Who is running this project?
Space Australia put out the initial call and is providing loose coordination however all design, construction, and testing is being carried out by DOW ICT staff and schools (as required).
Who Is on the DOW Team?
Alan Ibbett (CIO) - Overall CoOrdination and design of feed horn and waveguide
Tim Jones (Service Engineer) - Software development, Liason with Space Australia
Catherine Mitchell (Manager Service Desk) - Purchasing, Lead trainer and Assembly Expert
David Emery (CTO) - School LIason and CoOrdination with Spotlight20 Committee
Aidan Johnson (Science CoOrdinator JTCC) Project Leader and Facilitator Macarthur
Is this Curricular or ExtraCurricular?
Can be either, we understand that the curriculum is very crowded so have planned this to be an extraCurricular activity. If you or your students want to modify your scope and sequence to make this a part of the curriculum feel free to discuss this with other schools involved.
Is this a Science Project Only?
Actually this project has enormous depth as it will require literacy skills (to document the progress of each telescope), social media and influencing skills to communicate the aim and progress of the project. An understanding of software and software fault finding, Unix system administration as well as hard core science.
There are opportunities to combine TAS, English, Math, Science and HSIE into this project.
How much does it cost?
The whole idea of the project is to use inexpensive components and so we have sourced inexpensive components. The ICLT team will provide all components to teams and provide training and instructions on how to assemble and operate the telescope.
The school will not have to purchase anything.
What about after the Project?
After the project is over the Feed Horn, Waveguide, SDR, LNA and Raspberry PI 4 are the schools to keep. They can be repurposed for other projects or continue observations.
No comments:
Post a Comment