February 20, 2007

National Science Foundation Exhibit at AAAS 2007 Showcases HPWREN - LIVE

In December 2006 the National Science Foundation, via Kevin Thompson and Jose Munoz, invited HPWREN to participate in their exhibit booth at the 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in San Francisco, which lasted from 15-19 February 2007. The objective was to show real-time cyberinfrastructure enabling research and education activities as Live Interactive Virtual Explorations (LIVE) of remote science sites. The overall exhibit coordination was led by Susan Mason of the NSF while HPWREN Principal Investigator Hans-Werner Braun coordinated the HPWREN-specific activities.

The activity was fairly involved, and this summary describes the combined efforts of more than 30 people, who helped make the events successful.

Monika Braun produced several pieces of artwork for the HPWREN portion of the NSF booth at the AAAS 2007 exhibit, including a banner (above), a handout (left), four-screen distance education and overview posters (below), and a California Wolf Center display (later in this article).

Kimberly Mann Bruch provided a schedule summary and media advisory, working with Leslie Fink of the National Science Foundation.

Of significant help was that HPWREN Co-Principal Investigator Frank Vernon obtained permission from John Orcutt to utilize the Mobile INteractive Imaging Multidisplay Environment, developed by the Center for Earth Observation and Applications at UC San Diego. CEOA also allowed Atul Nayak and Thomas Im to prepare for and support the 15-screen display on site during the conference exhibit.

Jim Hale took responsibility for trucking the equipment from San Diego to San Francisco (left), and participated in the installation (right, with Atul Nayak). During the conference Jim Hale returned to San Diego to support the network, as well as conference presentations via HPWREN.

HPWREN display at the NSF booth showing the reception view (left), and the display during non-real-time events (middle). The view to the right depicts a time lapse animation of the San Diego "Horse Fire," narrated by retired CDF Captain Ron Serabia. Producing the higher resolution 1024x768 size animation with its sound track was possible due to help from Daniel Hoffmann and Yvonne Clasbrummel.

Several Live Interactive Virtual Exploration events were shown across the conference dates, and each kind is featured below. Many of the real-time audio/video connections used Skype with an attached digital video camcorder via firewire, and demonstrated an inexpensive way for field researchers to communicate. The audio/video connections with the Palomar Observatory used Polycom ViewStation FX equipment at the conference and the Observatory, and an HPWREN Polycom v500 at the California Science Center. However, the brand new Polycom v500 worked on Saturday, but consistently failed on Sunday, making it the only LIVE event that (at least partly) failed for the AAAS 2007.

LIVE events: California Wolf Center

Melinda Booth moderated the California Wolf Center LIVE session from the conference exhibit, while communicating with Patrick Valentino (on Saturday) and Kimberly Miller (on Sunday) in the wolf enclosures at the CWC.

LIVE event: UC Santa Barbara's Garner Valley Downhole Array NEES site

Hank Ratzesberger (right top photo) is supporting Jamison Steidl and Robert Nigbor as they demonstrate the capabilities of the remotely controlled shaker mounted on the experimental structure located at the Garner Valley field site, with Frank Vernon and Thomas Im seen at the conference floor. In the bottom image, Frank Vernon, is shown moderating the demonstration from San Francisco. He had initiated the shaker excitation and is pointing out the resulting motions of the structure on the waveform display. UC Santa Barbara has posted an own writeup about the event at http://nees.ucsb.edu/outreach/2007AAAS/.

LIVE events: Palomar Observatory and California Science Center

The Palomar Observatory events were supported by Andrew Pickles and Bob Thicksten of the California Institute of Technology. Benjamin Weaver (top right photo), member of Greg Aldering's Nearby Supernova Factory research group at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, is presenting in front of an NSF camera team. In the second image Scott Kardel is presenting to a classroom at the California Science Center, organized by Chuck Kopczak and Kim Burtnyk, with the class shown in the third photo. The bottom photo shows Daniel Zieber explaining the complexities of the observatory's data infrastructure, and why real-time communication is important to astronomy research.

LIVE events: San Diego State University's Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve

San Diego State University's Santa Margartia Ecological Reserve event was supported by Matt Rahn, with Spring Strahm (top left photo) presenting from SMER, and Pablo Bryant (second from top) making it all work. The third photo shows Morgan Robertson of the National Park Service's California Mediterranean Research Learning Center moderating the event from San Francisco, with Jose Munoz and Thomas Im watching. In the forth photo Susan Mason is communicating with Spring Strahm. The fifth and sixth photo shows NPS/CMRLC's Susan Teel (Saturday), and NPS Rangers Patricia Heusner and Volunteer Laura Congdon (Sunday) helping. The photo on the bottom left shows Spring Strahm and Pablo Bryant at the SMER site during one of the presentations. LIVE activities included real-time audio/video with Spring Strahm as the field researcher, time-series graphs of the river chemistry data that were updated about once per minute, a higher-elevation three megapixel camera updating its image every few seconds, and a 22+ megapixel three-camera 180-degree panorama that was updated every few minutes.

LIVE events: Seismology research, sensor networks, and ocean observing

Frank Vernon is presenting on real-time seismic observations (NSF Earthscope USArray and ANZA). In separate presentations he focused on a federation of sensor networks (ROADnet) and the Realtime Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing Syatem (SCCOOS).

Many more photos are available at /Photos/20070219.AAASPhotos/.