2020 STEMcoding/AFIT Summer Teacher Internship

AFIT's mission is to help build America's airpower, by educating military and civilian Airmen to innovatively accomplish the Air Force's core missions, in support of joint operations, more effectively, efficiently, sustainably and affordably. We provide unique defense-focused, research-enabled, multi-disciplinary advanced academic education, as well as globally delivering career-long, action-based, functional professional continuing education, over a continuum of learning, on-command and on-demand. Our success is measured by the career-long contributions of our graduates, faculty and staff. AFIT accomplishes this mission through four schools: the Graduate School of Engineering and Management, the School of Systems and Logistics, the Civil Engineer School, and the School of Strategic Force Studies. To learn more about the research performed at AFIT, please visit www.afit.edu.

This project is intended to mentor one or two interns, who will use High Performance Computing (HPC) systems to engage in summer projects mentored by Prof. Chris Orban from Ohio State University, who is a current DoD HPC user and former AFOSR summer faculty fellow at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Prof. Orban also leads the STEMcoding project. CDR Royce W. James, Ph.D. from the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), the US Coast Guard Academy, and the Center for Directed Energy at the Air Force Institute of Technology, will also serve as subject matter expert and advisor.

Task 1. Laser Environment STEMcode (LESc). Connects computer science, directed energy and atmospheric science. The teacher/intern will develop a coding activity that uses Snell’s law of refraction to reproduce the lens equation, which is an important formula for directed energy applications. A followup to this activity will involve using a simple Beer’s law prescription to estimate how far a laser beam (like a laser pointer) can travel through the air without significant attenuation. If time allows, the teacher/intern will develop a lab activity where students predict and measure the intensity of laser pointer beams with various colors after traveling the distance of a football field. The teacher/intern would work with Prof. Orban to record video tutorials to describe these lessons that would be posted to the STEMcoding YouTube channel (http://youtube.com/c/STEMcoding) for other educators to see.

Task 2. High Frame Rate Video STEMcoding (HFRV-Sc). The teacher/intern will develop classroom activities for physics/physical science that leverage the high frame rate video capabilities available on most smartphones and tablets. Through advances in consumer electronics, these devices can capture the motion of objects with frame rates up to 240 frames per second or more. Performing simulations of objects in slow motion videos could be an impactful way of integrating CS into physics/physical science classes, but there are not widely available resources to help teachers to do this. The teacher/intern working on this project would substantially improve this working demo and create lesson plans and new activities that would consider other situations such as projectile motion, model rocket launches and air drag. These lessons would be recorded and disseminated on the STEMcoding YouTube channel (http://youtube.com/c/STEMcoding).

This appointment is a nine week research appointment, with the possibility to be renewed for additional research periods. Appointments may be extended depending on funding availability, project assignment, program rules, and availability of the participant.

Participants will receive a stipend to be determined by AFIT. Stipends are typically based on the participant’s academic standing, discipline, experience, and research facility location. Other benefits may include the following:

The participant will not enter into an employee/employer relationship with ORISE, ORAU, DOD, or any other office or agency. Instead, the participant will be affiliated with ORISE for the administration of the appointment through the ORISE appointment letter and Terms of Appointment.