March 2009 From The Chair

Few things in this life are for certain. Unfortunately for electrical engineers, power distribution is not one of them. However we can mitigate the risk we face by having a back-up power source. So in March we will have Rob Robins of Bay Diesel come talk to us of providing back-up power systems for facilities and plants that we may have design cognizance over. This topic has a wide appeal to all of us, because I cannot think of an area of electrical engineering that is not dependent on power. So understanding the current factors of back-up power generation and understanding how those factors affect our everyday professional lives is important to us all.
I want to thank Dr. Reddy for his presentation in February on RFID technology. We learned that the airplane industry utilizes RFID tags for maintenance monitoring. While bar-coding has improved monitoring of inventory greatly, RFID tags are the next step. How many of us have stood in a grocery line while the clerk struggles to get the bar code off an item we are buying. In fact, one on my dogs has a RFID tag implanted in her, so you can say that I have a high tech wiener dog.
So far I only have one volunteer for the 5oth anniversary planning committee. I am still looking for a few more volunteers. I want to thank Dr. Ibrahim for volunteering. On a similar note, Janet Rochester has offered to represent the section at the IEEE-USA meeting in Philadelphia in August. I would like for us all to support Janet in providing a good history of the section. So if anyone has some section history, including any personal accomplishments , that they would like to share, please provide them to any officer of the section. This is good because I am thinking that we want a good historical accounting for when our section anniversary occurs in 2011. Thank you Janet .
I will be representing the section for the SoutheastCon in Atlanta this upcoming month. I will provide some feedback to the section as to what is presented at the Region 3 meeting that occurs during that time. So stay tune for additional information.
I am looking forward to meeting everyone in March.
Regards,
James Bolitho
2009 Chair
Hampton Roads Section

jbolitho@ieee.org

MathCounts Results

On February 14, students from 9 middle schools and 1 home school group on the peninsula went to NASA Langley’s Reid Conference Center to compete in the 26th Peninsula Regional MathCounts Competition.

As teams and individuals they answered over 50 questions in four rounds of competition. Teams consisted of four students while individual competitors varied from one to four from a school.

Top Team Scorers

• First Place* Tabb, Yorktown
• Second Place Berkley, Williamsburg
• Third Place Grafton, Yorktown
• Fourth Place Poquoson, Poquoson
• Fifth Place Dozier, Newport News
• Sixth Place Walsingham, Williamsburg

Top Individual Scorers

• First Place* Abigail Chen, Grafton
• Second Place* Dmitry Zamcov, James-Blair
• Third Place Mayee Chen, Berkeley
• Fourth Place Correy Xu, Tabb
• Fifth Place David Chasteen-Boyd, Grafton
• Sixth Place Joey Hsu, Tabb
• Seventh Place Chih-Wie Chang, Tabb
• Eight Place Thomas Baker, Berkeley
• Ninth Place Shalni Kumar, Poquoson
• Tenth Place Tim Slade, Slade Home School

Top Countdown Winners

• First Place Abigail Chen, Grafton
• Second Place Mayee Chen, Berkeley
• Third Place Correy Xu, Tabb
• Fourth Place Dmitry Zamcov, James-Blair

*The top team scorers and the two top individuals move onto the State Competition to compete against the winners from state regional competitions on March 28 at Dominion Powers Innsbrook Facility in Richmond.

March 2009 Meeting

Key Design Considerations for a Reliable Back Up Power System
Speaker: Rob Robbins, Bay Diesel Corporation
Aberdeen Barn, Virginia Beach

6:30 PM 19 March 2009

Please send inquiries and RSVP to officers-r3-hamptonroads@ieee.org . Your reservation(s) may also be made online at www.acteva.com.

Aberdeen Barn 5805 Northampton Blvd. Virginia Beach, VA 23455 757.464.1580 Google Map

Agenda 6:00 PM Executive Committee 6:30 PM Social Period 7:00 PM Dinner 8:00 PM Technical Presentation

Meal Costs Members $20 Guests $20 Students $10 No charge to attend the technical presentation.

Brain Teaser Challenge - "February"

I am on an astrophysics blog site, and occasionally am asked to add a little extra physics expertise to the discussion. In one discussion a blogger asked about the possibility of having a hollow earth. Letís discuss a few things about the real earth first. Most of the heaviest elements that are found on the earth are concentrated toward the center of our planet, due to their higher density. These heavier elements also happen to be the ones that are radioactive. Most scientists today believe that the heat that keeps the center of the earth molten is generated by the nuclear decay of these heavy elements and probably a slow rate of nuclear fission too. So the center of the planet is quite hot and has a deadly level of ionizing radiation. It is actually a much more hostile environment than outer space. Even if we could open up an empty sphere, it would be a very uncomfortable place to sit.

The question I was asked to comment on in this blog thread was, what kind of gravitational forces would one feel in this hollow earth scenario? Imagine the sphere is relatively small, say eight feet in diameter. Donít forget your lead underwear and a high power air conditioner.


Reply to Butch Shadwell at b.shadwell@ieee.org (email), 904-223-4510 (fax), 904-223-4465 (v), 3308 Queen Palm Dr., Jacksonville, FL 32250-2328. (http://www.shadtechserv.com) The names of correct respondents may be mentioned in the solution column.