Liz Quigg

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory • MS226 • Box 500 • Batavia, IL 60510 • 630 840-2631 • edreg@fnal.gov


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Flash / Director

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Flash Work (cont.)

Flash is a great authoring tool for animations and activities. Some of the animations are on the web while others are used in video production. Here is a sampling of some of the projects.


Shockwave Movies for Conference Displays

Fermilab has participated in various conferences including the SuperComputing for many years. Each year, I am asked to make animations to show processes related to the Grid. On the right, watch grid submission from Baltimore to the US and Europe. Another display was kiosk where visitors could explore samples of streaming videos on a Video Jukebox from Visual Media Services at Fermilab. To see the video, users must have the realvideo player.
Look at more examples of animations.

 

Animations for QuarkNet/Grid

To explain the Cosmic Ray e-Lab, I have created a number of animations like the one shown here. A complete set is available at the QuarkNet/Grid website. They help students and teachers understand the cosmic ray detector, data upload and analysis, student collaboration and some of the underlying technology using the grid. They also provide good material for talks about the project. We used them as part of a presentation at SuperComputing conferences and the SIS-Forum @ ICT4D in Geneva. Melissa Clayton did the introductory animation with the cosmic ray shower over the high rises of Chicago. Here are rest of the animations:

  • Send Data to Grid Portal - Data collected at schools is sent to grid portal.
  • Analysis - Counter Performance study activates grid portal.
  • Collaboration - How Students collaborate.
  • QuarkNet vs.CMS - Comparing use of Grid in QuarkNet with the CMS experiment
  • DAQII - How the DAQII board works. Has SOUND.
  • Director/Shockwave Work

    Many of my early projects used Director animations. No longer in use are animations that were part of the original Accelerator Kiosk. Here are some examples of screens from Shockwave movies still used on our website. All of these require the Shockwave Player from Macromedia. If you do not see an animation on the right, then you need to download it to look at my Shockwave movies. In late 2005, Macromedia made a new slim version of their Shockwave Player that does not automatically download all the Xtras. Activities with sound require the SWA Decompression Xtra. Loading the movie on the right automatically adds it to your player. Note: the Shockwave Player is different from the Flash Player which comes with most web browsers.


    Fermilabyrinth

    A collection of Web-based games and activities to develop an understanding of the operations and experiments that take place in the Fermilab accelerator and detector halls and the scientific ideas they explore. We implemented seven in Shockwave Flash. I developed five and mentored IMSA student Vishesh Narayen in developing two. These activities correspond to hands-on exhibitis at the Lederman Science Center. Try playing some of the games.

    We packaged Fermilabyrinth with the E=mc2 Activity and Anatomy of a Detector, a video developed by graduate student Liubo Borissov and the Education Office as a CD-Rom. Anatomy of a Detector, available online, features Joe Boudreau, a physicist who developed a virtual reality tool to display a collider detector and the resulting debris. The video is realvideo.

    Fermilabyrinth

    Special Relativity Activity using Physics Data

    Students compare their predictions on how far charmed mesons will travel before decaying with data from Experiment 687 and learn about special relativity. The Shockwave movie supports entering and plotting data and then allows students to check how well their calculations match data across a much wider ( more interesting) range of velocities using computer-simulated (Monte Carlo) data with much lower speeds.

    Try the activity. You will get to the Shockwave movie when you click Play with the data.

    Special Relativity Activity

    SIMply Prairie Visualizations

    To help students visualize plants in the prairie, I have three Shockwave movies: Students can:

    • Model actual data obtained by students at Fermilab or construct your own virtual quadrats.
    • Plot the change in the diversity of prairie plants as they bloom over the entire growing season.
    • Compare the root systems with above-ground growth of prairie plants.

    A screen from the last is shown on the right.

     

    Prairie Plant Roots Activity

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