The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.

IEEE Baltimore Section

https://www.ewh.ieee.org/r2/baltimore/

IEEE ExCom Section Meeting

Nov 8, 2004

 

Attendees

X  Jeff Friedhoffer – Chair

X  Brian Sequeira – Vice Chair

X  Boris Gramatikov – Secretary

X  Roberto Cuellar – Treasurer

X  John Dentler  –  Continuing Education

    Christopher Nemarich  – Program Director

X  Neville Jacobs  – Student Activities

    Jay Gamerman - Robots

    Tom Patton – Awards

    Carole Carey – Professional Activities 1 / ESB Rep

    Hoosamuddin Bandukwalla –  Professional Activities 2

    Joseph Pollitt  – Audits & Bylaws

    Vil Arafiles – R2 Treasurer; Membership Development – Baltimore Section

X Ron Aloysius – Newsletter Editor

   Thad Welch – Communication Society

    Dave Boyd – Annapolis subsection

    Eric Henlon – PES Chair

    David Sherman – EMB

    Mark Welsko – Chair, IAS

    Leonard Bathgate IAS Treasurer & Publications

    Walt Willing – Chair, Reliability

    Garth McKenzie – Chair Computer Society

X  Robert Berkovits – Chair, EMC

    Doug Kremer – APS/MTT

    Wole Akpose – GOLD

X  Domenic Georgantas – Chair, GOLD

    Tina Kohler – WIE

    Debi Siering – WIE, Greater Washington DC

X Tom Clark – Chair, LEOS

    Bill Dixon – Acting Chair, AES

X  Jerry Gibbon -  R2 Chair, South Area         

    Amarjeet Basra  - Chair, Northern Virginia Section

    Bill Semancik  - IEEE member

X Andrew Wilson – IEEE Student Branch, UMBC

X Erik Broman – IEEE Student Branch, UMBC

 

The Section Chair, Jeff Friedhoffer called the meeting to order at 6:30 pm.

 

Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC)

Presentation by Andrew Wilson and Erik Broman, IEEE Student Branch, UMBC

 

Andrew and Erik presented their 2004 UMBC Design Project, the goal of which is to develop an intelligent ground vehicle and in general enabling technologies for large scale autonomous ground vehicles, capable of transporting payloads while detecting and avoiding obstacles. This robotic vehicle features stereoscopic vision, a sonar range finder, on-board GPS system and potentially a  2-axis laser rangefinder for distance measurements. The team has won fourth place in 2003 at the Annual International Ground Vehicle Competition at the University of Michigan, and needs support for their present work. This year’s project has an estimated total cost of $10,721, for which a well-justified budget was presented. Andrew and Erik answered numerous questions from the attendees, concerning the principles of stereovision involved, payload capacity, speed and speed control, duration of operation, power consumption and batteries, etc.

 

John Dentler appreciated the quality of the project and made a motion that the team be supported with $500, which was the usual level of support. Neville Jacobs, emphasizing the significance, quality and the amount of the work, moved a motion for $900, seconded by Brian Sequeira. In the discussion which followed, Jerry Gibbon underlined the importance of such projects for both the IEEE and the Universities. All voted in favor, and the motion for $900 was carried. Furthermore, John added that sponsorship may further be sought from individual chapters such as the Industrial Applications Society (IAS) chapter. Boris Gramatikov reminded the recipients to mention this IEEE support whenever appropriate, and that a link to this project should be put on the Section’s web page. Jeff Friedhoffer added that a feedback in the form of written reports and possibly a presentation at the Chapter Chairs meeting would be expected.

 

 

Executive Reports

Section Chair (Jeffrey Friedhoffer): 

·        The WIE issue - The Washington WIE Chair choose to ignore the proposal by the three section chairs (Baltimore, DC and NoVA) for Baltimore's withdrawal from the joint existing WIE DC/NoVA/Baltimore Affinity Group and forming its own chapter.  Therefore, the case has been referred to IEEE Headquarters.

 

 

Section Vice-Chair (Brian Sequeira):

·        Convened a session of the Budget Committee for chapters and affinity groups. The Committee approved the budget requests submitted by the Annapolis Subsection, COM19, and AP/MTT. The PES budget has to be further discussed and clarified with their Chapter Chair and Treasurer. The Committee also suggests that chapters that did not submit a budget proposal for 2005 be supported based on their previous performance.

 

Jeff requested that this be finalized by the next ExCom meeting in December, so that we would have a completed 2005 budget proposal for the Section and Chapters before the end of the year 2004. Further, Jeff reminded that participation in IEEE meetings be budgeted. We should plan (for budgetary purposes) for two people to participate in regional meetings. Also, the Robot Challenge, the student paper contest and all student events should be entered in the 2005 budget. In addition, other recurring budget items like support to the HEM, dues to the Engineer’s Club etc should be included.

 

 

Secretary (Boris Gramatikov)

 

Treasurer (Bob Cuellar)

·        As of Nov 8, 2004, the balance with SunTrust was $3,594.85 and with Concentration Banking: $46,843.60

·        Needs to start preparation for the end-of-year balancing, and to prepare the roll-up sheet for the chapters.

 

Q (Jerry): How many active chapters do we have exactly?

A (Jeff): 10 active chapters + 1 affinity group (GOLD). The eleventh chapter, AES, is not active.

 

 

Jeff: The Election Status 05 cannot be discussed, since Vil Arafiles is absent. Jeff also urged the candidates for officer positions in 2005 to submit electronic pictures for publishing.

 

 

Old Business

 

1) Boy Scouts Electronics Merit Badge

 

Volunteers and mentors for the Boy Scouts Electronics Merit Badge program are being sought.

 

The mission of the IEEE emeritbadges.org program is to provide a global non-discriminatory pre-college technology education program for boys and girls. The IEEE emeritbadges.org program has developed hands-on electricity and electronics instructional material based on the Boy Scouts merit badge requirements. Instructional material for computer education is being developed. Any student, boy or girl can use the program to enhance technical literacy and learn more about viable engineering and other technical career options.

The next use of the new global pre-college electronics education material and hands-on kit will at the 2005 US National Scout Jamboree in Caroline County, VA, USA from 25 July 2005 to 3 August 2005.

 

 

Reports from IEEE Executives

 

Jerry Gibbon -  R2 Chair, South Area

 

 

Report Highlights from Directors and Chapter Chairs

 

Newsletter (Ron Aloysius)

·        Will send out a request for new articles these days

 

 

Student Activities (Neville Jacobs):

 

1. We had a booth at the TECH‑EXPO that was held at the Baltimore Museum of Industry (BMI) on 10/15, a booth at AIMS, which was held at the Convention Center on 11/1, and a display area at the Teachers Workshop on 11/4, also at the BMI. We got a lot of interest from those who visited our booths, though there was a poor turnout in the general exhibit area at the AIMS convention, and

there was pouring rain on the night of the Teacher’s workshop.  John and Katie Dentler did a great job at AIMS, and Bill Dixon was very helpful to the teachers at the Teacher Workshop.

 

2. We now have commitments for 48 teams from 18 schools, and have made contact with 28 schools. 59 robot kits have been distributed, as well as 8 automation kits. At this time last year we had signed up 36 teams from 16 schools, and had sent out 35 robot kits and 6 automation kits. Many of the teams signed up are from schools who have not been involved previously, and our present task is to follow up and re‑enroll teams from schools that have participated before.

 

3. Bill Semancik, Jam Gamerman, Brian Sequeira, Ron Aloysius and Walt Willing have all been working to contact teachers and helping them get started.

 

4. Carole Carey has submitted the 2004 application to PACE on behalf of the Robot Challenge.

 

5. We received a check from C.H. Flowers High School for $1086.

 

6. Expenses this past month have been 2 bills from Kelvin for $1062 for 30 kits sent to Jay Gamerman for distribution, and $708 for 20 kits sent to the Museum of Industry. Checks for these amounts should be sent directly to Kelvin by our treasurer. I have had expenses for printing the Automation Manual and some batteries for the demos used at the AIMS conference. A check for $243.59

should be made out to Neville Jacobs.

 

 

 

 

Subsection and Chapter Chair Reports

 

 

LEOS (Tom Clark)

The Inaugural Technical Meeting of the Baltimore Chapter of the Lasers and Electro-Optics Society will be held on Tuesday, November 16, 2004, at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Banquet will be held at 6PM followed by a 7PM lecture on Photonics in the Military by their dynamic guest speaker, DARPA MTO Program Manager Dr. Stephen Pappert. Main topics of the presentation will be: High performance microwave fiber optic links & components, Fiber optic link linearization techniques, and Optical signal processors and filters. In discussing these topics, an overview of on-going DARPA MTO research and development activities in RF Photonics will be featured. The talk will provide useful information for both the specialist and non-specialist.

A second LEOS meeting is planned for February, and a speaker has been lined-up.

A Graduate student poster competition is being planned for March 2005, in cooperation with the DC Chapter (LEOS), which agreed on splitting the costs (up to $500). A cash prize has been proposed, for which LEOS has budgeted $250. They would consider $500 a more appropriate amount for a prize of this level, and are asking the Section to supplement with $250, for which Tom made a motion. John seconded, all were in favor, and the motion passed. Therefore, LEOS will receive $250 added to their proposed budget of $500 for 2005.

 

 

EMC (Bob Berkovits)

 

1. Upcoming event:

November Meeting, IEEE Baltimore Section's Communications Society, co-sponsored by EMC

Topic: Interference in Communication Systems on Multi-emitter Platforms

Speaker: Thomas Jerse, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at The Citadel, Associate Technical Fellow of The Boeing Company, EMC Society Distinguished Lecturer

Time: Tuesday, Nov. 9th at 6:15, Location: Historical Electronics Museum (Pioneer Hall)

 

2. Established cooperation with the Product Safety Engineering Society

 

3. Planning an EMC Symposium for Baltimore, Washington and Southern Maryland.

 

 

 

Affinity Groups

 

GOLD (Domenic Georgantas)

 

 

NEW Business

 

Upcoming Sections Congress in Tampa. IEEE will support financially one delegate.

 

 

Brian made a motion to adjourn, seconded by Boris. The meeting adjourned at 8:10 pm. 

 

The next meeting will be on Dec 13, 2004, 6-8 pm at HEM

 

 

Action Items
 

Number

Action/Disposition

10.10

 

10.14

Arrange for web training on demand (Jeffrey Friedhoffer)

03.2

Organize a general Section meeting which would be of technical character and would be open to a broader membership i. e. “Nanotechnology” or “Big Blackout”.  (Bob Berkovits) 

 

 

 

 

Minutes were prepared by Boris Gramatikov, Secretary.