jzahir

I only worked on optical systems that others had designed at Subaru Telescope, but while there I met Dr. Stephen Pompea of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.  He had worked with Nishimura San of Subaru when they were both at U of Arizona and “Nishi” was always kind enough to take me along when he visited with other scientists from the mainland.

Dr. Pompea has always been an evangelist for teaching optics to pre-high school youth and in 2003 he got an NSF grant for “Hands-on optics” which gave teaching materials to grade school teachers in optics.  I was invited to participate in the inaugural class held at USC in 2003 and was able to teach it to a few of the home-schooled kids in Spokane, Washington.

The class provided a large notebook and a wide range of projects for us to teach with, but I went beyond the materials provided and built optical rails, and other “toys” for kids to take home to play with.