EMC 2012 Youth Technical Program

Abstract

T his year's Youth Technical Program was amazing, our speaker Garth D'Abreu gave an intensive talk about electromagnetic fields and devices that transmit and receive signals for communication and control. He also spoke about antennas and communication protocols -definitely a lot of food for thought for the young aspiring engineers. The audience participation was great with wonderful questions and comments from the teenagers as well as the preteens.The attendees didn't get much of a break with their hands-on project of building dual band AM/short wave radios from the kits that we supplied. Even though the radios didn't require any soldering (much to the dismay of the HAMS watching from the front of the room!), the kits required a lot of dexterity and good engineering practices of step-by-step assembly coupled with real time debugging. By the end of the workshops most of the radios played and the participant's excitement was evident.Thursday's tour of the exhibition hall was great. We had a large group of parents, grandparents and youths going from booth to booth and getting super talks from the exhibitors about their latest systems and areas of interest. From industry standards to ESD guns, shielding fabrics, field sensing panels, military equipment EMI concerns, antennas, amplifiers, ferrites, gaskets, cables and connectors, everyone had excellent exposure to the world of EMC and what the symposium is all about.I want to take this opportunity to thank the youths, parents, grandparents, Ed Hare (American Radio Relay League -ARRL), Garth D'Abreu (ETS-Lindgren), Aiden Duffy, symposium volunteers, symposium organizers and all of the exhibitors that were so enthusiastic and helped to make this program such a success.Thank you all again and we look forward to next year -it will be really shocking! Editor's Note: Many thanks to Amy Pinchuk and her company InField Scientific for generously donating the dual band AM/short wave radio kits. Amy created and ran the first Youth Program at the 2001 IEEE International Symposium in Montreal and has been active in the program ever since. That's dedication to hundreds of budding engineers over the years! EMC Several of the Youth Program participants are shown with adult moderators including Ed Hare of the ARRL (second from left, back row), Garth D'Abreu of ETS-Lindgren (third from left, back row) and Amy Pinchuk of Infield Scientific (far right, back row).all photos by Jerry ramie except where noted.