• NASA
  • IPAC

Summer Visit - 2013 - They Might Be Giants

The summer visit to Caltech is 3-4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The "They Might Be Giants" team came to visit in August 2013. The core team educators attended, plus 6 students.

Quotes

  • [student:] The best part was the time spent in the room researching. I actually enjoyed listening to people talk and use mathematical/scientific terms as if they were casual parts of everyday conversation. It was really fun after a lifetime of students grumbling "I'll never need this in real life, why are we learning this?".
  • [student:] Astronomers (and scientists in general) often don't find the results they want. In fact, we found almost no correlation between most of the elements we used (the star's amplitude, radius, surface gravity, etc). But finding no correlation is just as important as finding a correlation because it opens a window to new questions, such as -- why was there no correlation?
  • [student:] The best thing about the trip was being able to learn from and work along side real astronomers.
  • [student:] The most surprising thing was that I gained a renewed interest in space-stuff!
  • [student:] Yes, this did change my thoughts about astronomers! I never expected astronomers to be lively, funny, and talkative, while maintaining a mind of a genius!

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2013 - They Might Be Giants