LtUE 29

This weekend I was at Life, the Universe, and Everything XXIX, The Marion K. “Doc” Smith Symposium on Science Fiction & Fantasy. On Thursday morning, I was on a panel on Using the Scriptures for Story Ideas. Oh yeah, this symposium happens at Brigham Young University. Later, I was on a panel about Time Travel, Quantum Physics, and Parallel Universes. That one was a lot of fun. On Friday, my husband gave a presentation on When Plants go Bad. My final presentation was Using Stellarium in the Classroom. It was part of the Educators' Conference on Saturday, and not many people came. I think LtUE needs to improve advertising to teachers, 'cause even those who came to my presentation weren't school teachers but parents.

We had a lot of fun hanging out with all our ConFriends, and met several cool new people. Actually, we made it a point to meet new people, such as sitting next to unfamiliar faces during panels and at the banquet. We also bought XDM, & my husband is planning to run some games using it. I'm looking forward to that.

LtUE, report

Last weekend was the annual Life, the Universe, & Everything Science Fiction & Fantasy Symposium at Brigham Young University. I presented on Friday about the StarHouse Discovery Center, and on Saturday, I gave a workshop with some of our equipment. It was a lot of fun. The only problem was that all the teachers from the Educator's Conference on Saturday disappeared while I was setting up the equipment. But then all the Gofers came, & they really enjoyed. Gofers are the volunteers that make sure the panelists & presenters have everything they need - they "go fer this, & go fer that." Most of the Gofers at LtUE are the teenage children of former (& sometimes present) committee members. LtUE is primarily put on by BYU students who enjoy science fiction & fantasy. Some of the panels I attended were Creating Historical Costuming, Using 3D Image Editing Software, World Building, and Filking. Filking is Science, Science Fiction, & Fantasy folk singing. My Dan was with me, which made this year WAY more awesome than previous years, & on Saturday, we took one of our nieces along, too. She's almost eight, & takes art lessons. There were a bunch of art panels on Saturday, & she attended them, really enjoyed herself, & made a cartoon of her own. The Symposium always ends in a banquet, & this year it was held at the Skyroom on BYU campus. Yummy food, good friends, & meeting new, like-minded people - what more can you ask?

LtUE

I'll be at Life, the Universe, and Everything this weekend.

This is a FREE Science Fiction & Fantasy Symposium. I will be presenting about the StarHouse Discovery Center on Friday, & conducting a teachers' workshop on a few of the modules for the Jr Science & Astronomy outreach program on Saturday.

Hope to see you there!

Moving Forward

Today was our actual meeting with James from Cache Valley Space Education Center. M.Robin was also there. We've decided we do want to include the simulator as part of our program - and are going to be spending the next few weeks looking into places we could move it to and run programs. The 501(c)3 application is almost ready, so we will soon be sending in grant applications. We're also going to look into the possibility of setting up a payment plan with USU to buy the Jr Engineering equipment. We also discussed the possibility of working with the high schools in the area for some design work and possible collaborations with various research groups in the region.

Our next meeting is February 8, 2010 at 8:00 am. The location is not yet set.

It was an excellent meeting, & very exciting, even if my reporting of it is not. I suppose I need to work on my writing skills. A good opportunity for that will be at LtUE February 11-13 at BYU. This Science Fiction Symposium is FREE, & I will be giving a presentation on the StarHouse Discovery Center on Friday, February 12th at 10:00 am. Hope to see you there!