In the very middle of sunny August three ladies Marta, Brigita and Tatjana from UL SPIE Chapter went to San Diego, California, in order to participate in one of the biggest conferences - SPIE Optics and Photonics 2014. For the girls it was a great challenge in both professional and personal experience.
 |
| Pic.1. The delegation of the UL SPIE chapter. From the left: Tatjana, Marta and Brigita. |
Leadership workshop
The conference started with Leadership workshop where all the enthusiastic and eager youngsters met to learn new skills. The lecturer Jean-luc Doumont hosted two amazingly interesting parts of the training, making the participants work in groups, do case studies with real problems that student chapters usually come across and also they discussed what is and is not a good leader. The training was interactive, interesting and really useful, the students even didn’t notice how the time flies, when it was already evening of the first day.
 |
| Pic.2. The Latvian girls with the lecturer J. I. Doumant |
 |
| Pic.3. Marta is representing what a good leader is. |
 |
| Pic.4. Participants doing brainstorming in the Leadership Workshop. |
 |
| Pic.5. All the participants of the Leadership Workshop. |
Optics Outreach Olympic Games
This part of the conference is amazing with it’s simplicity and the easy way how to show the properties of light and how they can be applicable in everyday life or used as a scientific material for teaching children. Nevertheless, it is also a competition, so all the weapons are allowed. Latvian team had prepared visual tests and tricks with optical illusions. Vision science reveals many secrets of how the optical magic can be used in everyday life, for example, in restaurants, interior design, clothing and what not. This was a nice chance to promote also our small country from the Northen Europe, so the Team explained the patterns of national folk outfit (the pattern also makes a bit of illusion), and other symbols of Latvia, not forgetting about treating each visitor with physical explanation of optical magic and a delicious caramel “Gotiņa” from Latvia.
 |
| Pic.6. Activities of the OOOG. |
Student Chapter Session
More than 260 student chapters from all over the world highlighted the results of their active work on the traditional Student Chapter Poster Session. We learned about outreach activities and student conferences that are organized by SPIE students. Moreover, it was a great possibility to find ideas and make collaborations between student chapters. During the event the Team was actively promoting our Chapter and the upcoming 11th Young Scientist Conference “Developments in Optics and Communications”, which will be held in April 2015, in Riga, Latvia. Apart that, we highlighted the physics outreach activities in Latvia organized by our Chapter.
 |
| Pic.7. The Latvian team in the Student Chapter Poster Session. |
Optics+Photonics Conference
It is not a surprise that the conference is filled with strong scientific background. The latest researches were presented throughout the week during numerous oral and poster sessions. We presented our works as well. The wide range of suggested workshops and courses provided an opportunity to learn from experts in different fields of optics. But in the evenings SPIE members gathered on the terrace in order to socialize, taste some delicious dinner, enjoy the live music and relax after a long busy day.
 |
| Pic.8. Socializing with other chapters. |
Challenge completed successfully!
No comments:
Post a Comment