JD Armstrong works on outreach for University of Hawai'i's Institute for Astronomy on Maui. A major part of his job is to mentor hawaiian students in astronomy research projects and in particular projects that involve the LCOGT observatory on Maui, Faulkes Telescope North (FTN).
This year JD mentored 7 students. All 7 entered science fair and competed at various district fairs throughout the Hawaiian Islands. All 7 students at the Maui, Honolulu, and HAIS district fairs won awards. The Maui fair was held at the Velma Santos Community Center, Maui. The Honolulu Fair was held at Kapiolani Community College. The Hawaii Association of Independent Schools (HAIS) science fair was held on February 8, 2014 at the Sullivan Center, 'Iolani School, in Honolulu.
5 of the 7 students won merit awards which qualifies them to compete at the state level. One of the Maui students, Celeste Jongeneelen, won first place for the junior division. Celeste used data from FTN to study young open clusters looking for Be stars. Two of the students M. Thomas Sturm and Christopher Kim entered a joint project and won first place for the senior division and are automatically eligible for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Thomas and Christopher received numerous awards. A quote from the award ceremony, "Thomas and Chris come back up here."
Yet another student named Christopher, Christopher Lindsay, a freshman attending 'Iolani School in Honolulu who won awards in the HAIS and HSSEF science fairs in 2013, also won the Overall HAIS First Prize and the ISEF Award for his project, "The Search and Discovery of a CoRoT Exoplanet: Photometry of Transiting Exoplanets Using the CoRoT and Faulkes Telescopes". Christopher's project was a 2 year long observing effort, which involved analysing images from the ESA satellite CoRoT and performing extra observations on FTN. The amazing conclusion to this project was that Christopher's observations helped discover a new exoplanet!
As Overall Winner, Christopher receives an automatic berth and an all-expense paid trip to Los Angeles to compete in the INTEL International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in May. Christopher is the first 'Iolani student to receive the Overall First Prize at the HAIS District Fair.
Many of JD's previous students have gone on to pursue further study. One example is Steven Okada, who won first place at the Maui County Science and engineering fair last year for his study of time dilation of quasars corresponding to redshift. Steven used data from both FTN and FTS during his projects. Steve was admitted to CalTech, MIT, Stanford, Princeton and other schools. He was offered the University of Southern California's Regents Scholarship (Full ride for 5 years, including tuition, room and board, and books.). He was also offered the University of Hawai'i' Regents Scholarship. He is currently attending MIT and by all accounts is excelling.
All of the awards are listed on the Hawai'i Academy of Science website and on the Maui News website.
