On field, students have to image a given asteroid on two consecutive nights, producing two sets of images obtained over 10-15 minutes, each set separated by about 4-5 hours. In class, students have to process the images in order to measure the observed diurnal parallax and then determine the corresponding asteroid distance.

Given the spectral classification of a distant giant star, you will use the H-R diagram to estimate its absolute magnitude and luminosity. From the distance modulus formula, you will estimate its distance via spectroscopic parallax. From the spectral type, you will estimate its surface temperature and then use the luminosity formula to estimate the diameter of your giant star.---------------------------------------Distant Nature: Astronomy Exercises 2016 by Stephen Tuttle under license "Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike".

This laboratory measures the parallax shift of the Delta Leonis and uses a Spectral Classification Table to calculate the radius of this star from its temperature.---------------------------------------Distant Nature: Astronomy Exercises 2016 by Stephen Tuttle under license "Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike".

This course provides an introduction to important philosophical questions about the mind, specifically those that are intimately connected with contemporary psychology and neuroscience. Are our concepts innate, or are they acquired by experience? (And what does it even mean to call a concept ‘innate’?) Are ‘mental images’ pictures in the head? Is color in the mind or in the world? Is the mind nothing more than the brain? Can there be a science of consciousness? The course will include guest lectures by Professors.

Students learn basic concepts of robotic logic and programming by working with Boe-Bot robots—a simple programmable robotic platform designed to illustrate basic robotic concepts. Under the guidance of the instructor and a provided lab manual, student groups build simple circuits and write codes to make their robots perform a variety of tasks, including obstacle and light detection, line following and other motion routines. Eight sub-activities focus on different sensors, including physical sensors, phototransistors and infrared headlights. Students test their newly acquired skills in the final activity, in which they program their robots to navigate an obstacle course.

Students learn about traffic lights and their importance in maintaining public safety and order. Using a Parallax® Basic Stamp 2 microcontroller, students work in teams on the engineering challenge to build a traffic light with a specific behavior. In the process, they learn about light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and how their use can save energy. Students also design their own requirements based on real-world observations as they learn about traffic safety and work towards an interesting goal within the realm of what is important in practice. Knowledge gained from the activity is directly transferrable to future activities, and skills learned are scalable to more ambitious class projects.

This video demonstrates the concept of parallax and its utility for measuring cosmic distances.

This activity lets students measure distances in the classroom using parallax. The exercise can be done either at a high school level using trigonometric functions, or at a middle school level using simple arithmetic approximations to the trigonometric functions. A work sheet is provided for the middle-school-level activity.The resource is from PUMAS - Practical Uses of Math and Science - a collection of brief examples created by scientists and engineers showing how math and science topics taught in K-12 classes have real world applications.