Nashua Community College Hosts IEEE Microwave Distinguished Lecturer

The IEEE Student Branch at Nashua Community College cosponsored an IEEE Microwave Distinguished Lecturer (DML) meeting held on October 23.  IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization for the advancement of technology.  It’s DML program arranges for lectures by subject matter experts on state-of-the-art microwave topics to be presented at local IEEE sections throughout the world.   Dr. Simoni Bastioli is Chief Engineer with RS Microwave Company, Butler NJ, and a Distinguished Microwave Lecturer.  His talk in Nashua on “Nonresonating Modes Do It Better” was part of a northeast USA tour.  Dr. Bastioli is an expert on microwave filter design.  He has published and lectured worldwide on the use of nonresonating circuit elements to optimize and enhance filter response, particularly in communication systems.  While the subject matter is specific, Dr Bastioli’s presentation was tutorial in nature and included dynamic illustrations and graphics to help visualize operating principles.  It was well received by an audience working in a variety of disciplines.

Dr. Simone Bastioli, DML, presenting on “Nonresonating Modes Do It Better” at NCC

Additional cosponsors for the meeting included the Association of Old Grows (AOC) Granite State Roost, IEEE Joint Microwave Theory and Techniques Society / Antenna and Propagation Society NH Chapter and IEEE Computer Society NH Chapter.  The lecture was very well attended, with 27 members representing the sponsoring organizations, area colleges and high-tech companies.  Prof Barbara Bancroft, NCC IEEE Student Branch Advisor, was very pleased with the turnout, particularly the half dozen or so NCC students that attended.  Following the meeting, Dr. Bastioli commented on the quality of questions, which included several pertinent ones from the students.  The McIntyre conference room is an ideal venue for these events and Prof Bancroft is looking forward to hosing future meeting at NCC.

 

Dover Maker’s Faire 2018

IEEE NH had the opportunity to partake in the 6th annual NH Maker & Food Fest (formally known as Dover Mini Maker Faire) on Saturday, August 25th. With the help of many volunteers consisting of engineers and maker hobbyists, this event is focuses on exposing children to STEM and engineering concepts. Many people brought their pet hobby robots, circuit assembly games, and 3D printers. The children had a blast playing with the robots, solving the puzzles, meeting Storm Troopers, and letting their creative minds explore.

The IEEE booth was manned by three IEEE-NH volunteers: Kat Reagan, Ed Nelson, and Robert H’obbes’ Zakon. Kat introduced the children to the MIT programming language Scratch – a plug and play online language for children. Scratch has many example programs, online user programs, and tutorial so children can easily learn to program whatever they aspired to write. Surprisingly, many children had previous exposure to the application through camps, school, or engaging parents. One boy created a flying fire breathing dragon to dance with his sister’s dancing unicorn. One girl couldn’t wait to return home and program. These are our future engineers and NH is preparing them to succeed.

Teach your children how to program with Scratch! https://scratch.mit.edu/

Ed Nelson also brought a MIT Scratch Minecraft game which he called Minecraft Hour of Code for kids. This Minecraft theme game provided puzzles that users must program through. Steve, the Minecraft character, must build through the puzzles by placing blocks to finish the world (or level). Children plop down block code to direct Steve. Ed’s demonstration shows that children can learn while having fun. And boy did they have a blast!

Robert’s demonstration really was the shining star – nothing can beat a dancing robot. ROBOTIS mini can dance, bow, wave, BREAK DANCE, and win everyone’s heart. And it did. At the turn of the century, Honda wowed the world with ASIMO. And only 18 years later, similar robots are available for the average hobbyist. ROBOTIS design is open sourced and can be either bought or 3D printed. Robert also brought the “Seeing Wand” that can describe objects it points at. Sadly, the environment was too loud to demonstrate. Read more information about Robert’s “Seeing Wand” project at https://www.zakon.org/robert/projects/seeing_wand/

WIE ILC 2018

On May 21st, the IEEE Women in Engineering International Leadership Conference (WIE ILC) held their 5th anniversary conference in San Jose, CA. This conference aimed to provide women in technology the ability to form a community and personal development for any career level. The mission for this year’s conference was to inspire, engage and advance women in engineering.  The annual conference was organized by Nita Patel, the Conference Chair and our wonderful IEEE NH member. The conference was attended by our Section Chair Kat Regan and Vice President Hayley Feyh. The conference was a two-day long whirlwind of workshops, keynote speakers, and mixers. The following are the best takeaways from the speaker’s and workshops during the conference.

Paula Tolliver, VP & CIO of Intel had great advice on self-improvement. She stated that you should not define yourself by a degree or job title because being too narrowly focused limits opportunities and allowing for flexibility and change drives success. When making a point, don’t over-explain yourself to convince the other party because this shows a lack of confidence. Forgo caveats (but, I guess, maybe) that suggests a wavering level of confidence, credibility, or success and choose an affirmative language style.

Lorraine Martin, VP of Lockheed Martin had tips for dealing with negativity. During her keynote speech, she shared how being positive is assuming goodwill in any situation. Negative comments and events will always happen. It’s not in our control what others choose to do or say, and it is not our job to change someone else. However, you do not own any negative comments, and it can become a learning opportunity rather than letting it affect you negatively.

Candy Barrone, CEO of Empowered Strong, had an empowering talk on “Saying Yes to More Time”. Her best points were to take care of yourself (physically & emotional), have no more than 2 priority items a day, and get your personal ROI (Return On Investment). When “time-wasters” appear, ask yourself “is this someone else’s issue or mine?” and “is there a need right now?”. These are important questions to consider because saying “yes” to every issue or request can put off your own tasks or goals.

Jim Lukaszewski’s, a renowned Public Relations Expert, talk focused on being heard and making your words count! He also discussed the importance of positive\negative language, talking to time, and the 3-minute conversation drill. Jim has all the same resources from the conference available on his website.

While many keynote speakers provided a well of personal development advice, others stressed the need to increase women participation in Engineering and other related fields. Emily Moore, the Managing Director of the mining consulting firm Hatch, expressed the need for female engineers to spark new ideas and innovation in the mining industry. Responding to mining’s is slow response to change from external pressures, the BHP Billiton mining company promised to eliminate the female/male participation gap to address the skill shortage with a statement that, to do things differently, companies need to hire new and different people.  Diversity brings new insights and change.

The IEEE Women in Engineering International Leadership Conference was a wonderful opportunity to network with fellow colleagues and the keynote speakers. Anyone who is looking to advance their career or be part of a larger community to make an impact should consider attending the conference. Please see the links below for more resources on the conference and speakers mentioned above.

References:

WIE ILC:  http://ieee-wie-ilc.org/

Jim Lukaszewski: http://www.e911.com/

Candy Barrone: http://www.sayyesquiz.com/

Report on the NH participation in the IEEE Congressional Visits Day May 9 2018

Our DC visit unexpectedly aligned with the Congressional budget allocation process. This changed our nominal “we support STEM, R&D, and apple pie” visit to a more immediate “please allocate funding for …”. So here’s a snapshot of how the CVD process works.

We start at the IEEE USA offices with an intro to each other and key concepts related to connecting with our congressional delegation. Even in situations where we happen to have time with the Senator or Congresswoman, these typically are short photo-ops where we can plant one or two key messages. The real connections are with their staff members who are the lead persons for given areas. These are the folks that need to pull together the information to help their boss be aware of what the “constituents” think (so being in their district/ state is important, and having 1550 IEEE members in the state reflects a significant number of constituents.)

Our messages in this context, along with supporting materials provided in a “leave behind” packet, focused on the funding for NSF, NIST, DoE and to a lesser degree DoD. Allocation to these entities provides for basic research that is the foundation for IEEE’s leading technological role. Research in energy, communications, bio-tech, and more all feed into New Hampshire efforts from start-ups to BAE systems and Oracle/Dyn systems — but also into startups and the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute that is getting off the ground in Manchester. Beyond value for New Hampshire, technology is the engine driving economic growth and benefits for humanity on a national and global basis. Finally, while the U.S. is tightening budgets, other countries and the E. U. are increasing funding for research to displace U.S. leadership in leading edge areas like genomics, artificial intelligence and alternative energy.

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Virtual Private Networks

On April 16th IEEE NH CS and NCC Student Branch hosted a seminar titled Virtual Private Networks, Cisco Software and Hardware Tools. Today privacy concerns are paramount. Employees have grown accustomed to working remotely. How do we make accessing company data and company computers remotely secure, reliable and cost effective? The answer is VPNs.

Cisco has a number of solutions both proprietary and open source. Tom Moran, long time NCC professor who currently works at Dell, presented a great summary of the VPN options available. He explained the IPsec technology which dominates today’s market. VPNs offer a great solution of using public Internet for tunneling private internet traffic in a secure way. They also provide a significant cost advantage over traditional dedicated leased lines. Leased lines like T1 and T3 were secure, but the cost was significantly greater over VPNs and the speed was limited.

Professor Moran explained how VPNs keep the connections secure by encrypting the data. He gave a detailed discussion of public and private keys and different encryption algorithms.

 

In addition to welcoming students and guest from the general IEEE community we also had several high school students attend. Barbara Bancroft, the IEEE branch councilor and NCC professor took the opportunity to tell everybody about the new Cybersecurity degree offered by NCC. She also talked about new initiatives in the area of Mobile Systems and Internet of Things. Tom Moran teaches the CCNA security classes.

 

2018 New Hampshire State Soap Box Derby’s Spring Rally Weekend

The New Hampshire Soap Box Derby is excited to announce that our Annual Spring Rally is set for Saturday May 5 and Sunday May 6. For the first time ever the event will take place in Nashua. Boys & girls ages 7 to 20 – Build (beforehand with assistance from an adult) then race in their gravity powered cars. A limited number of Stock division car kits are available to refurbish. A morning and afternoon race will take place each day in Stock, Super Stock and Masters Divisions. Trophies are awarded to top finishers; with year-round racers competing to be the “Rally Champion”. Racing on each day is from 9:00 am to midafternoon. The track will be in the BAE Systems parking lot at 95 Canal St.

Interested in racing? Contact NHSBD at http://www.soapboxderby.org/new-hampshire to learn about cars available to refurbish and race. New car kits are available for purchase online at: www.soapboxderby.org The event is free for spectators. Bring your chair and take a seat along the course. Cheer on over 30 racers in side by side competition.

For additional details see the press release from New Hampshire State Soap Box Derby

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Cybersecurity – Personal Security Habits

On March 29th NCC IEEE Students and Computer Society IEEE NH hosted a professional seminar titled: “Cybersecurity – Personal Security Habits”. The seminar was presented by Information Assurance Manager for Department of Defense, Peter Kurek. Professor Kurek also created our own Cybersecurity program at NCC. Professor Kurek holds many highly coveted and desirable Cybersecurity certifications.

The talk explained how Cybersecurity works and what we should be aware of. We received advise on how to keep our computers and all the devices that we use safe and accessible. CIA stands for confidentiality, integrity and accessibility. How do we make data correct, secure and accessible? We could simply restrict access to all data, but then the computes would be useless. Giving the right amount of access while keeping data safe is a continuous challenge for system administrators.

Next seminar will take place on April 16th. We will be talking about Virtual Private Networks.

Girls Technology Day 2018

Girls Technology Day – March 16th 2018

Girls Technology Day event was coordinated by the NH Department of Education, NH High Tech Council, and NH Colleges and University. Since 2012, these events have served to encourage STEM awareness for 9th and 10th grade female NH students. This year, was close to 600 students that attended.

 

 

IEEE NH Section had the pleasure to represent at the Girls Technology Day at the Manchester Community College. Hayley Feyh and Kat Reagan interacted with the young girls. Haylee brought her surface book to demo PowerBi (Business Intelligence) while Kat demonstrated a small robot. Many girls were excited to see both demonstrations. All were happy to receive the Women in Engineering bags and t-shirts. The event was well received as the participants were happy about the STEM exposure.More information can be found at https://gtd-nh.org/