Astronauts and Experts Physics Labs

Hybrid Physics Labs with “Astronauts” and “Experts”

College physics labs were conducted with half the students physically in the room, each working with a remote lab partner. Since this is similar to how NASA astronauts perform experiments on the International Space Station (ISS), those roles came to be…

Summer Solstice 2019 in Wooster Hall

Summer Solstice 2019 in Wooster Hall

As we have done in past years, a small group of those interested came to Wooster Hall to observe the skylight lights cross over the staircase at Solar Noon (at 12:58:16 EDT). This year the actual Solstice (at 11:54 EDT)…

Vernal Equinox 2019

What a difference a year makes. Last year I made a time-lapse video of the Vernal equinox in Wooster Hall by standing next to a wall and taking a photo about once a minute for an hour. This year I…

PODS (Portable On Demand Storage) units.

Welding Ventilation Estimate

I have been investigating the requirements for students to be able to weld on campus, which is needed for our Baja SAE team, for projects for our Engineering Senior Design course, and for other various engineering projects.  One of the…

Wooster Hall from above.

Wooster Hall Rooftop Mystery

A few weeks ago I visited Wooster Hall with a time-lapse camera to try to see what happens to the light from the skylight over the main staircase at solar noon on the Winter Solstice.  I was a few days…

Wooster Hall skylight on 18 December 2018

Winter Solstice in Wooster Hall

Wooster Hall at SUNY New Paltz has a neat feature:  the main staircase is aligned directly North/South, and skylights are positioned above it so that at solar noon on the equinoxes the bottom of the staircase is illuminated by four…

This Building Sucks  (Literally)!

This Building Sucks (Literally)!

Today the doors to the new Science Hall at SUNY New Paltz are really hard to open.   There is a howling sound as wind screams its way through the cracks between the doors, which goes away temporarily as you open…

Eric Myers and his daughter, Amanda, demonstrate the reason for the sun's change in elevation over the seasons

Summer Solstice in Wooster Hall

Wooster Hall at SUNY New Paltz has a neat feature.   The main staircase is exactly aligned along a north-south line, and skylight windows in the ceiling were placed so that light from those windows lines up at the bottom of…

Vernal Equinox in Wooster Hall: Irregular Interval Time-Lapse Animation

Vernal Equinox in Wooster Hall: Irregular Interval Time-Lapse Animation

Wooster Hall on the SUNY New Paltz campus was completely remodeled recently, and a neat new feature is an alignment of the skylight over the main stairway such that the bottom of the stairs is lit up at exactly solar…

Wooster Hall stairs at Solar Noon on the Vernal Equinox, 2018

Vernal Equinox in Wooster Hall

The newly updated Wooster Hall has a neat feature at the bottom of the staircase between the first and second floors.  Above that stair  there is a large skylight with 4 windows, and at the bottom of the stairs there…

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