the inreach

once in a while (or long while), i like volunteer and work for free. today was one such day and i participated in an inreach organized by the society of physics students, of which i am a part. the inreach is a day of us college students showing middle school students various physics demonstrations to get them interested in the sciences. and even after all these years, playing with spring oscillators, forming sugar patterns on vibrating metal plates, and shattering glasses with their natural frequency never ceases to be fun.

for this particular inreach, i was assigned the optics demonstration with two other students. my particular demo was an example of the human eye. so i explained how an eye worked and what happened in near/far sightedness. my demonstration was shining a beam of light through a lens and a spherical beaker of colored water to simulate an eye. the beaker's water had particles of latex suspended throughout to show the light's path of travel. this would allow you to see the lens would focus the light too early (near sightedness) and how lenses (glasses/contacts) could be used to correct this.

the entire ordeal was quite taxing for me. we had to meet at 8:45am, which meant that i had to get up at 8am (very early in college student time, especially for a saturday). we arrived at the building we were meeting in only to find that the building was locked. waiting outside on a michigan morning is quite chilling. when we finally got in, we found that due to weather conditions (snow), the children would be arriving over an hour late. on top of that, one of my demo partners decided not to show up and i felt like the kids were bored out of their minds by our lectures. at the end of the inreach, i was quite cynical.

as i was walking home, i happened to pass by the same group of children walking around on a different part of campus. one girl instantly recognized me. her eyes lit up and she exclaimed that i was the one who taught them about the eye. perhaps the inreach wasn't such a waste of time after all.