Thursday and Friday

Thursday afternoon Greg gave the first of many talks about professional development. Greg highlighted the expectations for our students and the hopes (and dreams) of each of the professors involved in research. We were then given an opportunity to listen to a short presentation from each of the professors after which students gave a preference ranking for each project.

Friday morning two conflicts arose, first was rabbits versus sheep, wherein our model resolved this conflict showing victory for one of the two species, except in a very specific region! Our second conflict arose with Jeff's talk on time scales, this was discrete versus continuous. This conflict was not resolved and promises to give the students ample opportunity to debate (or just form an opinion) in the 7 weeks that remain.

This afternoon students will have an initial meeting with their group as well as another opportunity to see MatLab at work.

This weekend (weather permitting) students are going on a hike at Vedauwoo. Have a great weekend!!

Our project teams have been selected:

Good Vibrations Team
Jeff Selden
Mike Bostick
Casey McKnight
Michelle Zagardo
Peter Muller

Dynamic Systems Team
Hakima Bessaih
Eric Quade
Josh Keller
Kristen Campilonga
Dennis Gucker

Chaos & Computations Team
Dan Stanescu
Patricia Jibben
Daniel McElhaney
Sarah Nowak
Eric Smith

Wednesday into Thursday

Wednesday afternoon Dan Stanescu gave a wonderful introduction to discretization of differential equations. The students were set to work on several problems and were given the chance to interact and work in small groups.

Thursday morning the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day, unfortunately there is still much work to be done. Greg Lyng gave a stimulating continuation of a continuous talk... Again students were given some problems to work through, and this time were told to be prepared to present their work.

Hakima Bessaih gave our second talk on difference equations, and gave an introduction to the logistic equation, which will lead discussion into fractals. After a long morning of talks students were allowed a lunch time, we will see what the afternoon holds.

A successful first day and a half

Our first day started with a tour of Laramie and some of the many business and restaurants around town. If anyone would like a reminder of any of these they can email me or call my cell phone.

After the students checked in, we were treated to a wonderful Campus tour from Eric Quade. The main points on the tour were the libraries, main and science, as well as the Half Acre recreation center.

In the evening we all made the trek to Bryan's for a barbecue and many laughs.

Wednesday morning, bright and early, Bryan gave a brief introduction to the project and we dove right into our first immersion lecture with Greg Lyng. After a stellar talk we had a brief break and then began to work in collaboration with one another, we will have images of weights and springs dancing in our heads tonight.