NEWSLETTER OF THE BALTIMORE SECTION OF THE IEEE
MAY 2005
The web site for the Baltimore section of the IEEE is:
IN THIS ISSUE:
4. Computer
Society Meeting Notice
5. Communications
Society Symposium
7. Baltimore
Women in Engineering (WIE)
8. Women In
Engineering Networking Meeting
1. Signal Processing Society
All paperwork was submitted. We are still waiting to hear from the IEEE about our charter.
2. Robot Challenge
2005 ROBOT CHALLENGE, April 16 & 17, 2005
The 2005 Robot Challenge was a great success, largely as a result of the many volunteers who helped make it so. Without them it would have been impossible - with them the kids had a wonderful time, challenging themselves as they went through the process of preparing the Written Reports, measuring themselves against teams from 15 schools across the State of Maryland, and making their Oral Presentations to the judges who worked the many tasks needed to keep up with the students.
45 teams attended over the two days (compared to 31 teams last year), all of them having completed all portions of their requirements, and all of them winners! Charles H. Flowers High School took the lead in the Individual 2-leg and the Team 4-leg events, and Beth Tfiloh in the Team 2-leg Challenge. Other schools in the top slots were Maryvale Prep and Long Reach High School.
There were robotic goats and dogs, totems, dolls, spiders, Greek Gods, frogs, characters from Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland, cowboys, dragons, angel wings, monsters and flying saucers. Teams brought artwork, posters, videos and cheerleaders, and the Automation teams brought their laptops. Everybody seemed to be having a great time, including the judges! A repair station was kept busy with the teams that encountered difficulties along the way, and final results and photos were posted on our Web Site on Sunday night, and may still be visited at www.robotchallenge.com for more details.
We would like to THANK the many people who contributed to making this event memorable and special to all of our students who participated with such enthusiasm. They put on a great show, and the Organizers, Photographers, “PIT” experts, and of course the Judges were the ones who made it happen. We would like to acknowledge the following:
Judges who worked on the WRITTEN REPORTS on MONDAY, April 11
Charlie Alfred, Ron Aloysius, Dave Boyd, Robert Cuellar, John Dentler, Bill Dixon, Jeff Friedhoffer, Jay Gamerman, Boris Gramatikov, Neville Jacobs, Marcia Richard, Bruce Schmickley, Dave Sherman, Walt Willing
Those who worked on the SATURDAY, April 16 event
ORGANIZER: Jay Gamerman
REGISTRATION & polaroid photos: Rachel Jacobs Weiss, Joe Jolson, Winnie Weeks, Ron Aloysius
REPAIR STATION “The PIT”: Gary Wieboldt, Dave Weaver, Mike Pang, Duane Dudeck
DIGITAL PHOTOS: Christine & Cody Allison
STILLS PHOTOS: Jeff Weiss
VIDEO: Neville Jacobs
TRACK JUDGES: Dave Boyd (Chief Judge)
Bruce Schmickley, Jeff Gamerman, Gary Tartanian, Art Jeyes, Joe Day, John Topolski and Clifford Jessup (Midshipmen from the Naval Academy), Albert Hsu, and Andrew from UMBC
ORAL PRESENTATION JUDGES: Brian Sequeira (Chief Judge)
Bill Semancik, Boris Gramatikov, Walt Willing, Jeff Friedhoffer, Jerry Gibbon, Dave Sherman, Bob Cuellar, Rachel Jacobs Weiss, Mars Gralia, Charles Granderson, Terri Kamm.
Those who worked on the SUNDAY, April 17 event
ORGANIZER: Jay Gamerman
REGISTRATION & polaroid photos: Rachel Jacobs Weiss, Joe Jolson, Winnie Weeks
REPAIR STATION “The PIT” Gary Weiboldt, Mike Pang, Keith Donahue
DIGITAL PHOTOS: Lucia Jesus
STILLS PHOTOS: Jeff Weiss
VIDEO: Neville Jacobs
TRACK JUDGES: Dave Boyd (Chief Judge)
Dave Sherman, Jeff Friedhoffer, Gary Tartanian, Rich Merritts, Art Jeyes, Terri Kamm, Eric Broman (UMBC).
ORAL PRESENTATION JUDGES: Brian Sequeira (Chief Judge)
Jeff Friedhoffer, Dominic Georgantas, Bruce Schmickley, Walt Willing, Paul Demos, John King, Vadim Polyakov
On behalf of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) who sponsor the Robot Challenge, we would like to thank all of the above, as well as the parents and friends who came to the Museum this weekend to support the students in their Challenge. We wish all the students every success in their College and hopefully engineering careers.
Neville Jacobs
IEEE Director, Student Activities
3. Robot Festival
Robot Festival
Saturday, May 14, 2005
10 am – 4 pm
Historical Electronics Museum, Linthicum, Maryland
On May 14, 2005 robots will overrun the Historical Electronics Museum in Linthicum, MD! Many of these robots were designed, programmed, and built by local students in elementary through high school. Get up close and personal with these slithering, rolling, sneaking and leaping creations as they rove throughout the museum. Robotic teams from throughout the mid-Atlantic region will showcase their original self-propelled robots. Returning for its fifth year to the Historical Electronics Museum, this year’s event promises to be bigger and better than ever and best of all – it’s FREE to attend!
You will see Battlebots, FIRST Robotics Competition teams from local high schools, “PWNAGE” the winner of this year’s Trinity International Robotic Fire Fighting Contest, artistic robots, CosmoBOT – an human interactive robot, robots from the Maryland FIRST LEGO League competition, and more! Cheer on your favorite robot as the Northeast Robotics Club holds a fighting robot competition. See “Ant Weight Bots” from the PennBots Robotics Club of Pennsylvania do battle. Lean about how you can build your own robot and join in the fun!
For pictures and additional information, click on the Robot Festival’s official website at www.robotfest.com.
Housing over 50 years of creative engineering and technical advances. The Historical Electronics Museum is located near BWI at the corner of Elkridge Landing and West Nursery Roads in Linthicum, Maryland. The museum can be reached at 410-765-0230.
The Robot Festival is an annual event that promotes creativity, technology, engineering and the sciences.
For more information check out www.robotfest.com
4. Computer Society Meeting Notice
The Computer Society Baltimore Chapter will hold its next technical meeting on Thursday, May 19, 2005 at the HEM. The guest speaker will be Dr. Julie J.C.H. Ryan and the special topic is on the "Application of Operations Research techniques in Infosec"
Please endeavor to attend that meeting, as it will be the last meeting until September.
TOPIC ABSTRACT:
There is a great deal of opportunity in using the techniques and methods in operations research to investigate the operational aspects of information security. At GWU, we are embarked on a long-term research effort to systematically investigate the application of OR methods to operational information security to see which provide the most promise for more in-depth study. So far we have investigated the use of the Cox model, most commonly used in medical research, and the approach of expert judgment elicitation. This talk will provide a brief overview of the work performed to date and the results achieved through these efforts.
ABOUT THE GUEST SPEAKER:
Julie J.C.H. Ryan received her D.Sc. from The George Washington University (GWU) in Engineering Management and Systems Engineering. She holds an M.L.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies from Eastern Michigan University and a B.S. from the United States Air Force Academy. She is currently an Assistant Professor at GWU. Her research interests include information security, knowledge management, international relations, and information warfare. She worked for 18 years as an information security specialist, systems engineer, intelligence data analyst, and policy consultant prior to her academic career. She is the co-author of "Defending Your Digital Assets Against Hackers Crackers, Spies, and Thieves" (2000, McGraw-Hill).
5. Communications Society Symposium
The IEEE Communications Society is pleased to announce a new symposium!
IEEE Symposium on New Frontiers in Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DySPAN) will be held 8 - 11 November in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Current radio technology trends promise to enable "Dynamic Spectrum Access" (DSA) networks, using wide-band spectrum sensing, real-time spectrum allocation and acquisition, and infrastructureless mesh networks. Not only do these trends challenge the existing technologies, they challenge the traditional "command and control" methods of allocating and licensing spectrum by government fiat. IEEE DySPAN 2005 will be a new, first-of-its-kind symposium on DSA Networks that brings together the technologists designing and building these new exciting devices with the spectrum policy community that will be charged with re-architecting the legal regime for managing spectrum in the 21st century that must accommodate these new technologies.
DySPAN 2005 seeks original, previously unpublished papers with either a Technology focus or a Policy, Law & Economics focus as well as Position Papers which are innovative and forward-looking and offer new insights that show promise of pointing out future research directions.
Please visit www.ieee-dyspan.org for complete Call for Papers and additional information.
IEEE DySPAN 2005
8 - 11 November
Baltimore, Maryland USA
www.ieee-dyspan.org
6. ED/SSC Chapter Meeting
ED/SSC Chapter Meeting
Thursday May 19 at the Historical Electronics Museum Linthicum MD.
Refreshments 5:30 pm, Speaker 6:15 pm
An Overview of MOSFET Device Behavior and Modeling for Mixed-signal/RF IC Design
Yuhua Cheng
Siliconlinx, Inc.
ABSTRACT:
This talk will overview the device behavior and modeling challenges in RF CMOS technology, which is an attractive potential process candidate for wireless communication and system-on-chip (SOC) applications. The downscaling trend of CMOS technology will be discussed briefly. Then the MOS device characteristics will be reviewed to understand the device behavior at high frequency. Modeling issues will be explored with a focus on MOSFET devices with the discussion on device figures of merits and model validations to generate high quality models for mixed-signal/RF applications.
7. Baltimore Women in Engineering (WIE)
The new Baltimore Women in Engineering affinity group had their kickoff meeting on March 29th. The primary purpose of the meeting was to elect officers and discuss future activities. After opening remarks by Brian Sequeira and Jeff Friedhoffer, the attendees selected the following women to serve on the executive committee:
Chair: Tina Kohler
Vice Chair: Susanne Daniels
Secretary: Cassandra Wolfe
Treasurer: Yamaris Soto
8. Women In Engineering Networking Meeting
The Women In Engineering Baltimore Section Affinity Group will hold their first Networking Meeting on June 9th, 2005 at 6:30 pm at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab on Johns Hopkins Road in Laurel, Maryland. Light appetizers and beverages will be served. Precise location will be confirmed closer to the meeting date.
Please join us for this unique opportunity to meet and network with other women in the electrical engineering field and to find out the great things that the newly formed Executive Committee has planned for the year.
Mrs. Chineta Davis, Vice President of Norden Systems at Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems, will be joining us to speak on her experiences throughout her career.
If you are interested in attending, please contact Tina Kohler at m.a.kohler@ieee.org.
The status and advancement of women in the engineering and science professions is the focus of the WIE membership group. Goals include the development of mentoring and educational programs, the publication of relevant information, and special initiatives.
The WIE Scopes of Interest:
Gather and disseminate information regarding the status of women and initiatives for, by and on behalf of women in engineering and science.
Enable mentoring and education programs within IEEE and make available information regarding gender related educational issues, which may improve the entry into, and the retention of women in engineering programs.
Increase the participation of women within IEEE.
Address ways to improve the climate for women in IEEE and the workplace.
9. Student Paper Contest
We had our first student paper contest yesterday 9 April at the HEM Vlad Seghete from UMBC won first prize for a paper on his Soliton Research.
There was a second paper entered but no award was given for that paper. The winning paper will be posted on our web site.
10. IEEE Virtual Museum
News item: IEEE Virtual Museum Launches New Exhibit; Gets Accolades.
IEEE Virtual Museum Exhibit Gets Accolades
The IEEE Virtual Museum has launched its latest exhibit, "Songs in the Key of E," which explores the numerous ways electronics have been used to create music. With examples such as the singing arc, the Theremin and the synthesizer, among others, the exhibit highlights both the inventors of electronic instruments and the instruments themselves, and uses audio clips to demonstrate the various sounds.
This is the eighth IEEE Virtual Museum exhibit since its launch in 2002. Aimed at pre-college students and their educators, the museum explores the global impact of electrical and information sciences and technologies to demonstrate how relevant engineers are to society.
The new exhibit has garnered accolades for the IEEE and the Virtual Museum from THOMASNET(http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/archives/2005/03/engineering_a_s.html?WT.mc_t=imt&WT.mc_n=site_entry), a blog for the industrial market managed by Thomas Publishing Company. In addition to praising the IEEE, the reporter noted that the IEEE Virtual Museum is the first he's visted that is like a real museum, with "great photos” and well-researched "substance." He called the new exhibit about electronic music "fascinating" and commented, "It's warming to see just one of countless forms of engineering that is so very human."
11. Continuing EE Education
Name of project: Continuing EE Education (“CEEE”)
Goal: A section-level program aimed at:
Updating the IEEE members on new developments in the EE field.
Familiarizing engineers with basic new tools, products and techniques as well as giving them the initial knowledge and skills to use them.
Inviting representatives from different vendors to present leading novel products.
Giving tutorials in new areas.
Helping IEEE fellow members become more competitive, especially in times of uncertain jobs, off-shoring and salary stagnation.
Facilitating networking.
Broadening the horizon of each IEEE member.
Fostering collaboration between members of different societies as well as generation of new ideas (“cross-pollination” element).
The program should be open to all IEEE members, including students. It is meant to be a cross-societies initiative, i.e. should not be limited to narrow topics serving the interests of a single chapter only. Emphasis should be placed on meeting with experienced experts from different fields. Critical comparisons between different solutions of EE problems are expected to be made, and trends should be discussed.
Potential topics of interest could include, but are not limited to:
Software tools:
Programming languages
Compilers
Real-Time Operating systems
Debuggers
Emulators
Hardware tools:
Novel electronic components
Single-Board Computers (SBC)
Embedded solutions
FPGAs
Printed circuit board design (schematics capture, layout)
Circuit simulation (PSPICE)
Portable devices
Signal and image processing (examples, tools, help)
Wireless devices:
Theory
Standards
Available OEM products
Trends
Internet-based methods and devices:
Standards
Available tools
Contemporary design tools (like AutoCad and Solid Works)
Reliability and Compliance issues
We plan to invite qualified speakers from academia, industry and governmental institutions. The speakers will be professionals who can give first-hand information and share front-line experience on the technology, methods and tools being presented.
We plan to organize 2-4 meetings annually. Each meeting is planned to last for 2 hours or more. We could meet on weekdays, or on Saturdays.
Please send us your suggestions and preferences regarding topics, time and place of meetings, the name/acronym of the program etc.
Boris Gramatikov
Vice Chair,
Baltimore Section
Editors Note:
When I lived in the Philadelphia area, I attended a couple of all day seminars/training classes sponsored by the Signal Processing Society. The Signal Processing Society would sponsor an all-day seminar/training class once a year, I believe in the month of September. The meeting would be held on a Saturday at U. of Penn. The start time was approximately 8:30 AM and the meeting would go until about 5:00 PM. We got a couple hours off for lunch. There would be four speakers, each talking about a particular subject within the overall theme of the class.
The first class I attended was on adaptive signal processing. One of the speakers was Dr. John Proakis from Northeastern University in Boston. People involved in communications will be well aware of Proakis’ Digital Communications book. And people in signal processing may be aware of the DSP book that he wrote with Dr. Manolakis. The second class I attended was on wireless communications.
I believe the cost of the class was $100. You would receive a set of notes with the class. You might ask, who would devote an entire Saturday to attending a class (and pay $100) that would help them on their job? The answer is, a lot of people. We had a pretty good turnout.
Let us know if you would be interested in something like this. Would you be willing to devote an entire Saturday to learning something new? Would you be willing to pay for it? Would it be better to have a smaller class during the week and after work?
