OPTO Meeting For Young Researchers & IONS-14 Report
IONS-14 / OPTO Meeting For Young Researchers 2013... 3 IONS-14 / OPTO Meeting For Young Researchers 2013 - Khet 2.0... 16 IONS-14 Social Day... 27 Optical Hare and Hounds... 33
IONS-14 / OPTO Meeting For Young Researchers 2013 On 3-6 July 2013 at the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Informatics of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun (Poland) there were two international student conferences: IONS-14 / Torun, which was the fourteenth European edition of a well-known series of International OSA Network of Students conferences, OPTO Meeting For Young Researchers, which was coorganized with SPIE Student Chapter from Torun. Especially for this events we created promo movie. It was shown during Szymon Tamborski visit in Switzerland (more information) and you can see it here by your own. The idea of the meetings was an opportunity to present the results of student s work and to establish contacts with professionals from over the world in the field of optics and simply to have fun during special social events. OPTO Meeting conference, started in 2009 at our University, has enjoyed significant success, gaining a reputation and becoming recognized among students all over the world. This year s OPTO Meeting was the fourth edition of the annual meetings of young scientists. On the other hand, IONS conference is a moving event and each year takes place in a different location. The rank of the conference was strongly increased because of the presence of many international specialists in the field of optics and photonics such as Prof. Susana Marcos (Instituto de Optica in Madrid, Spain), Prof. David Sampson (University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia), Prof. Krzysztof Palczewski (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA) - Winner of FNP (Foundation for Polish Science) prize and Dr. Michalina Gora. There were also special lectures aimed at developing the skills of the participants in the field of implementation of ideas to the market, entitled: Translational research - from idea to the device, by Dr. Michalina Gora, The myth of talent and reality of being an Expert, by Daniela Hekiert.
Apart from that, during the three days of the conference there were oral sessions and poster sessions and a contest with prizes for the best speech and poster. We organized this event with collaboration with NCU SPIE Student Chapter, Wroclaw University of Technology, Silesian University of Technology, University of Warsaw OSA & SPIE Student Chapters. About meeting with last two Chapters which strengthen our relationships you can read here. Both conferences were attended by 75 students from many different countries, including Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Italy, Russia, Great Britain, USA, Australia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Malaysia. During the event apart from forging new friendships and sharing one s scientific experience students could take part in official tournament of Khet 2.0 (more about it here) and Social Day in last day of IONS-14 conference (more information here). Official part of the conference took 3 days.
Day 1 The 1 st day of almost every event is always the most stressful day especially if it s your first time to organize so big conferences which both together were the biggest events in our life. During registration we encouraged students to play Khet 2.0 game as a warm-up before official tournament. All started at 12.00 with speeches of Main Coordinator of both conferences, Sylwia Maliszewska, and the dean of Faculty of Physics, Prof. Miroslaw Bylicki and conferences IONS-14 & OPTO Meeting For Young Researchers officially began.
In the 1 st day we had presentations of guests, Prof. Susana Marcos and Dr. Michalina Gora, both met with thunderous applause.
In the end of this day we invited our guests to Welcome Party, where they could meet each other, talk during great party, dance and sing karaoke!
The 2 nd day was also full of knowledge. Day 2 At the beginning of the day Prof. David Sampson presented his work. After him we invited 3 famous professors from different fields of physics as a local professors to share with us their achievements and experience: Prof. Maciej Wojtkowski, optics, medical imaging, OCT, Prof. Sebastian Mackowski, nanostructures, Prof. Ryszard Trawinski, quantum clock, Bose-Einstein condensate, quantum effects. This day was the first day of a poster session, Khet 2.0 tournament and trip to Torun Centre for Astronomy in Piwnice where people could rest after hard working day and still be near science, had chance to better know each other and learn something new about our universe.
Final day of the conference Day 3 It was different from previous ones because of lab-tour where our guests could see how we, in Torun, make science and develop their skills, knowledge and experience in the field of implementation of ideas to the market during workshops. Besides that, one of our guests, Prof. Krzysztof Palczewski had his presentation.
And we had another day of student talk sessions and 2 nd day of poster session and Khet 2.0 tournament.
The last day couldn t be last official day of conference without official banquet and after party which we organized in the 5 start hotel in Torun Hotel Copernicus. During banquet we gave awards for the best and 2 nd best posters and talks on each conference. Besides that there were finals of Khet 2.0 tournament which caught a lot of interest from the participants of the conferences! To compete for the title of the best Khet 2.0 player during IONS-14 / Torun and OPTO Meeting For Young Researchers conferences two persons sat opposite to one another: Marek Szklarz (Poland) and Elena Sunchugasheva (Russia).
Final thoughts After both conferences we created questionnaire where participants could share their thoughts about our events. Below you can find some of them. It was very interesting, useful, fruitful and exciting week! It was nice to meet so many enthusiasts of optics! Соsy and calm city, beautiful nature, nice prices, tasty pierniks! Thank you very much for opportunity to take part in the conference and for organisation of this bright event! =) That was a great conference and whole time! Thanks! Thanks and keep up the good work! nice conf. Thank you very much for the wonderful meeting in Torun. With your organization effort and enthusiasm the conference turned out to be a success. Good luck in your promising research at Copernicus University. Hope we meet again at another event in the future, and perhaps IONS-XX in Torun :-) We would like to thank OSA, SPIE and authorities of the Faculty for financial help to organize those two magnificent conferences!
IONS-14 / OPTO Meeting For Young Researchers 2013 - Khet 2.0 Like you can read here, on 3-6 July 2013 at the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Informatics of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun (Poland) our chapter host two international student conferences. During the event apart from forging new friendships and sharing one s scientific experience students could take part in official tournament of Khet 2.0 Yes - we had official support from creator of this game!
During the first day of the conferences during the registration Warm-up Khet 2.0 session took place. Its goal was to make the participants of IONS-14 and OPTO Meeting acquainted with the game rules. The very tournament took place the second and third day of the conferences during the poster sessions. The number of participants was limited to 32 people, who played the knock-out-like tournament. Basic rules of the game were consistent with the main rules of Khet 2.0, but due to time constraints it was set that one game can last for 20 minutes and its winner is the person who beat more figures.
16 games were played during the first day.
On the second the finalists were selected in the next 14 games. On the photos below you can see semi-finals.
Khet 2.0 Tournament finale took place during the official banquet on the last day of the conferences. The maximum time of the final game was extender to 30 minutes. The additional challenge for the players were beam-splitters. To compete for the title of the best Khet 2.0 player during IONS-14 / Torun and OPTO Meeting For Young Researchers conferences two persons sat opposite to one another: Marek Szklarz (Poland) Elena Sunchugasheva (Russia)
Finale caught a lot of interest from the participants of the conferences. Especially when people with significant skills took part in it.
The gameplay was very tight. Initially, the tide of war was on the side of Elena, who took two figures from Marek.
But in the end it was Marek Szklarz who won the game.
The winners of the tournament received statuettes made especially for the occasion by the creators of Khet 2.0 game. Marek and Elena also got the T-shirts with Khet 2.0 logo on them. On the photo (from the left) the winner of Khet 2.0 tournament, Marek Szklarz, the organizers of IONS-14 / Torun & OPTO Meeting For Young Researchers conferences, Krzysztof Maliszewski and Sylwia Maliszewska, the second best player during Khet 2.0 tournament, Elena Sunchugasheva.
Final thoughts We would like to thank the creators of Khet 2.0 for their official support and consent to organize Khet 2.0 tournament. We want also to thank Justyna Cembrzynska and Anna Grembowska for their help with the conferences and Khet 2.0 tournament. And we d like to give final words about this tournament from one of the creators of Khet 2.0: This looks amazing! [ ] I can tell a lot of effort went into this event and we will be happy to work with you again in the future. Luke Hooper
IONS-14 Social Day The last unofficial day of organized in 3-6 July 2013 at the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Informatics of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun (Poland) conferences IONS-14 was Social Day. Social Day is the day when after all studies, talks, poster sessions and workshops participants can have really free time for themselves, strengthen relationships with other people, do networking, visit interesting places and simply have fun. Do you want to know what kind of activities we planned for our guests?
Guide tour The day began with a guided tour around famous Torun s Old Town. He was wearing old medieval clothes of Crusaders who lived in Torun in Middle Ages We traveled across many interesting places in Torun such as: Town Hall Old Walls
Leaning Tower Old Town plan Famous Baj Pomorski Theater Torun s churches
Making of gingerbread But it was just the beginning of fun! We wanted this day to be remembered, so we hope we made it by inviting our guest to create one of those by themselves: Gingerbread in Gingerbread Museum We needed to make promise that we won t tell a secret how to make gingerbread under the threat of being cursed by a fairy, so we re sorry but won t put our lives at risk! Still we can show you some pictures from this event and present some movies, though!
Optical Hare and Hounds The last attraction we kept as a secret to the end! It was something no one expected. It was almost the most time-consuming, but still very enjoyable part of organizing IONS-14 & OPTO Meeting For Young Researchers conferences and we are proud of creating a city game in Torun called Optical Hare and Hounds By this game we wanted to show our participants Torun, which is a little bit different than the one everyone can see with the guide. We hoped that the players of Optical Hare and Hounds will have at least as much fun as we did during the creation of this amazing game, of which the board is the city we live in. Whole game was combination of touring, searching, being observant, patient and intelligent. Across whole Old Town we placed point of interest. Players were obligated to find or/and count specified objects, guess riddles. But optical in the name of this game is not accidental! In some of POI we placed experimental setups, tests, optical riddles and there wasn t something you could guess you only needed to be smart.
Optical Hare and Hounds
Final thoughts Unfortunately, all good things come to an end Social Day ended with great positive notes and comments from participants. They and we had a lot of fun and spent great time together. The coordinator, Sylwia Maliszewska, seems to scream: No, good things, don t come to the end!