STEM Ed Announcement: Circuits and Beats Showcase, Friday, Aug. 13

[mort@k12s.phast.umass.edu]

This is not a STEM Ed Program.
 Contact information is below.
 ================================
 
 
 Young electronic music designers to showcase creations Aug. 13 in
 Springfield 
 
 Eleven middle-school age students from Springfield have built and programmed
 funky electronic music machines under the direction of UMass Amherst
 engineers, as part of Circuits and Beats, a free two-week summer tech
 workshop by the College of Engineering, in collaboration with the Greater
 Springfield-UMass Amherst Partnership.
 
 The intensive two-week program is taking place in the Parish House of the
 Old First Church on Court Square in downtown Springfield, and will run
 through Friday, Aug. 13. The participants will showcase their projects for
 the public and news media at a special showing on Aug. 13, 2-4 p.m.
 Springfield Mayor Dominic Sarno is expected to arrive between 2 p.m. and
 2:30 p.m.
 
 DATE: Friday, Aug. 13, 2010
 TIME: 2-4 p.m.
 PLACE: Parish House, Old First Church, Court Square, Springfield (across the street from Symphony Hall, 34 Court St.) 
 PARKING: Park on the street or use the I-91 SOUTH parking garage. Directions, etc.:
 http://www.parkspa.com/facilities.shtml
 http://www.parkspa.com/directions/I91South.shtml
 Annotated Aerial Photo-Map attached.
 
 The program was developed by UMass Amherst's M5, a makerspace for electrical
 and computer engineering students, with major financial support from UMass
 Amherst, ProSensing and StandardAero. Several Electrical and Computer alumni
 also contributed to the project.
 
 Each young sound designer will build and keep her or his own music machine.
 They have learned how to read circuit schematics and modify computer
 programs for an 8-bt microcontroller. The participants did not have to have
 any particular technical background, but have been expected to have a
 genuine interest in learning more about computers, electronics and music.
 
 According to Maryann Lombardi of the UMass Amherst Greater Springfield
 Partnership, the three major goals of Circuits and Beats are:
 
 THE JOY OF TECH: C&B introduced the students to the joy of tech through an
 exciting one-of-kind musical hardware/software electronics project which
 they have made and will take home. They have assembled electronic sensor
 circuits which control a miniature music synthesizer.
 
 CONNECT MATH AND SCIENCE TO TECH WORK: C&B emphasized which middle-school
 and high-school math and science courses form the basis for future studies
 in engineering, computing and technology. C&B has advised the young makers
 regarding which math and science courses they should take in high school in
 order to study engineering at UMass Amherst or other colleges and
 universities.
 
 MAKE COLLEGE CONCRETE: C&B took the young makers on a field trip to the
 UMass Amherst campus where they toured M5, the new Integrated Sciences
 Building and the Du Bois Library.
 
 The lead instructor for Circuits and Beats is Sean Klaiber, a 2010 graduate
 of the UMass Amherst Electrical Engineering. He is an accomplished musician
 and has two years of experience teaching hands-on tech UMass Amherst's M5.
 
 He is assisted by three other UMass engineers. Constantina Tyes is a senior
 in the Electrical Engineering program. Rodrigo Bismonte and Patrick
 Estabrook are juniors in Computer System Engineering and Electrical
 Engineering, respectively.
 
 T. B. Soules of UMass Amherst's Department of Electrical and Computer
 Engineering serves as the faculty director of the program.
 
 All of the computers and test equipment is loaned to C&B by the Department
 of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UMass Amherst.
 
 Each student who completes the two-week program will receive a Logitech S220
 2.1 Speaker System in addition to a Circuits and Beats music machine
 featuring the Arduino Duemilanove microcontroller and the VS1053 MIDI
 (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) Sound Module.
 
 For more information, please contact Mr. Soules at 413-687-4710.
 
 T. B. Soules
 Sr. Lecturer and Undergraduate Program Director
 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
 Marcus Hall, Room 8
 University of Massachusetts Amherst
 Amherst  MA   01003-5215  USA
 +1 (413) 545-4573       (Direct Line + Voicemail)
 +1 (413) 545-2441       (Undergraduate Program Office)
 soules@ecs.umass.edu
 
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