SSL booth at Cal Day a lively, sunny success

On Saturday, April 23rd, from 9-4, Cal Day returned as a live event after two years of being mostly virtual. On a clear and sunny day, dozens of white tented booths were located throughout the Berkeley campus, staffed by individual UC departments. Although scaled down to 5 or 6 thousand visitors, an atmosphere of energy and enthusiasm prevailed throughout campus. (This year’s event was limited to incoming freshman, current students and their families, and not to the general public.) Our SSL booth was located in the Mining Circle near Physics and Astronomy, and fortuitously placed between the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation on one side and the Women in Physical Sciences and the Physics Latinx Community booths on the other. Six dedicated SSL students and researchers worked our booth all day as more than 300 people stopped by to ask questions about SSL and NASA missions, get info & mission swag, and engage in hands-on activities. The sun cooperated fully by giving delightful weather and displaying an attractive sunspot cluster to be viewed with our Sun-spotter. Another popular activity facilitated by Laura was a Build-Your-Own Satellite (see pictures). About 20 incoming or current students signed up for more information about working at SSL.

On behalf of SSL, we extend thanks and appreciation to our six volunteers, who have been regularly meeting and brainstorming with me for six weeks:

- Assistant researcher and ICON team member Joanne Wu.

- Graduate student researcher, currently getting a Ph.D. at UCB, Milo Buitrago-Casas

- Graduating UCB senior Laura Sorgi Johann, who is heading to Embry-Riddle in June.

- Paula Nordstrom Miranda is a recent UC grad and our SSL undergrad community builder.

- Matthew Fraysse is an R&D engineer.

- Incoming Berkeley grad student working on GRIPS, Meredith Wieber.

Additional thanks to Robert Lettieri and Chris Scholz and others for their behind-the-scenes support.

Matthew Fraysee and Laura Sorgi Johann explain what SSL does.

Joanne Wu demonstrates a remarkable view of current sunspots in real time using a Sunspotter.

Ketav and Aakarsh, best friends, came to our booth with so much excitement about space. They built two satellites, one going to Neptune and one to Uranus. They decided the more solar panels the better—hopefully four panels will get them to their destinations!

Milo showing off the Sunspotter.

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Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley

Space Sciences Laboratory
at the University of California, Berkeley