Chemistry Champions semifinalists named

A heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported my video in the Chemistry Champions contest.  What an exciting way to share my journey and tell my chemical story!  The 10 semifinalists and their video titles are:

• Jennifer Apell, graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “An Environmental Benefit of Plastic”
• Geoff Dubrow, graduate student at the University of Minnesota, “Understanding Whisky Chemistry”
• Tien Nguyen, Ph.D., recent graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Finding Better Ways to Build Chemical Bonds”
• Jennifer Novotney, graduate student at Cornell University, “Frameworks for the Future”
• Tierra Range, undergraduate student at Centenary College of Louisiana, “Solar Cell Research”
• Ashlee Robison, undergraduate student at Fort Lewis College, “Preventing Honeybee Decline”
• Alexis Shusterman, graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, “CO2Monitoring in HD”
• Shane Stone, undergraduate student at Syracuse University, “Biofuel Catalyst Research”
• Krista Wilson, Ph.D., assistant professor at Wingate University, “Chemistry of Frogs to Develop New Methods of Pain Relief”
• Shannon Woodruff, graduate student at Southern Methodist University, “Chemistry to Better Deliver Medicine Inside Cells”

Congratulations to the ACS members selected to present during a private workshop on August 9th. Even though I was not named a semifinalist, as an ACS Chemistry Ambassador, I can attend the following events during the 248th ACS National Meeting & Exposition.

• How to be a Better Communicator: the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science will present Improvisation Training for Chemists. Sign up for a three-hour session, either 9 am—to noon or 1:30—4:30 pm, Sunday, Aug. 10, at the Hilton. Tickets are $10 and are available here. 
• San Francisco symposium--Communicating Science to the Public: Moscone Center South Building, Room 104, 1-5 pm. Tuesday, Aug. 12
• San Francisco Reception for all Chemistry Ambassadors: Tuesday, Aug. 12, 5-6 pm, Moscone Center South Building, Esplanade Ballroom 306.

I don't feel bad about not winning.  As I posted on this blog, it was an experiment in social media.  Every experiment is a chance to learn.  I kind of knew that I would be out-classed by those with newer devices.  My video camera is woefully out of date compared with the new phones and tablets that make video capture extremely easy.  Heck, I don't even know how to record video directly from the integrated webcam on my eee PC.  I don't think my phone even has video.  I recorded the audio using a Sansa Clip.

I do have an older video camera (circa 2007) that still uses casette tapes. And getting the video to a PC for editing requires FireWire 400 alpha which requires my old Gateway 450SX4 laptop (circa 2002). Amazingly enough this setup still functions, but for some reason it felt like too much work to make a ChemChamps video where I was actually addressing the camera directly. Also I have no tripod. Also I have no lab. In other words, I don't work in a lab at the moment. My classroom is my lab and the best documentation I have of my work is in 10-second timer photos of myself at the chalk or whiteboard.

The time I tried to install a heat shield... unsuccessfully!

My attempts to edit video using the HP Pavilion TX1000 in 2009 were unsuccessful since it caused the computer to overheat.  My advisor had let me borrow an HP Flip HD camera to record video of myself in the lab, working with my undergraduate student researcher.  The data was so large that it was impossible to deal with on the computer I had.  I took the thing apart and tried to see where the problem was, and ended up ruining the mother board.  Thanks to a repair by Riverside Computer Center, I had a new mother board but as of today, the PC won't turn on.  It's a shame since I had Minitab installed on there and have not been doing any multivariate statistics since that PC died.

I always thought I would end up as an old nutter in a garage full of old electronics, and I'm getting pretty close already although I have a storage unit instead of a garage.  I kind of like old technology.  Some of the photos in my video were taken with a Olympus Stylus film camera.  I love new technology too.  I scanned the images printed from 35mm film using an HP Office Jet 4500.  I love that document feeder!  The video was edited using Windows Movie Maker on a Dell Inspiron 660 with 8 GB of RAM and 1.8 TB of memory (of which 1 TB of memory is still free).

Other photos were taken with a 3.3-Megapixel digital camera HP Photosmart 720 (2003-2005) which sadly died in an accident involving a decomposed jack-o-lantern.   My next digital camera was a 4.1-Megapixel Sony DSC-S60 (2005-2007) which died in a collision with a concrete patio at the hands of my nephews during our engagement party.  Then, I got a 7.2-Megapixel Sony DSC-T10 (2007-2010) which died swimming in a pool of pickle juice.  My current camera is a Kodak 12-Megapixel Easyshare M530.

Plotting this data results in a fit according to Kryder's Law where taking the log of megapixels and plotting it versus the year yields a linear relationship.  Using this fit to extrapolate to 2014, the data suggests I should have a 27-Megapixel camera by now.  It looks like the budget compact cameras now have 16-Megapixels while compact megazoom cameras go as high as 18-Megapixel.  Sony has a high-end camera 24.3-Megapixels (HD) which sells for upwards of $500.  So I guess we're not quite to 27-Megapixels yet.  And do we really have the digital storage for images that large?  It's certainly more common to see HD televisions, so I guess it makes sense that we can capture high-resolution images, too.

I guess what I'm doing is making excuses and reminiscing about outdated electronics instead of talking candidly about my contest video entry.  What I realized through making and sharing my Chemistry Champions video is that I am afraid to address the camera.  You can see me doing this in the video below.  I was nervous while talking to the camera even though you can see I am standing in the CMC Student Garden next to my Syngenta corn.  It was a place I felt connected to and I was speaking about a topic for which I have a passion, also knowing the cameraman was an expert, still I was uncomfortable.

The W. M. Keck Science Department Presents The Nano Fashion Show from Claremont McKenna College on Vimeo.

This is why I'm excited to still have the opportunity to engage with the events planned for Chemistry Ambassadors at the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco.  I feel I can improve my confidence and further distill my message to make engaging outreach a success.  One professor recently suggested I imagine I am 7 feet tall.  I'm still struggling with that, but I'm a work in progress.

I do appreciate the Chemistry Champions contest because it got me writing more on this blog.  I amped up my twitter posts as well.  I got some new followers and followed some new tweeps.  I expressed some views about social media, diversity, and big data that are near and dear to my heart.  I started this blog waaay back thinking that when I got 10,000 views I would submit a book proposal.  Now we are in the era of eBooks and self-publishing.  A colleague recently asked me if I know anything about creating an iBook.  I doubt it could be done on a PC.  Obviously books are still relevant if there are still bookstores, but it seems as our attention span is getting smaller and electronic storage is growing, people want eBooks and 3 minute HD video clips.