We had a great NAG holiday party last Wednesday, with good food from Qdoba and Nothing Bundt Cakes! Bingo was the game-du-jour, and everyone seemed to come away happy with their white-elephant-gift-exchange results. Here is our annual holiday photo (complete with elf-hats-with-large-ears)!
Happy holidays from the Nebraska Acoustics Group!
Season’s Greetings to all of our blog readers, and best wishes for a Happy New Year in 2012!
Congratulations to Lauren Ronsse, a recent PhD graduate from our program! Lauren has received the 1st place Student Paper Award in Architectural Acoustics for her presentation “Impacts of Classroom Acoustics on Elementary Student Achievement” at the recent Acoustical Society of America conference in San Diego.
This NAG meeting featured Eric Powell who presented on the graduate project he’s completing for his Master’s of Architectural Engineering degree. Eric is investigating optimal placement of absorption in small rooms to minimize the impact of low-frequency modes. He’s using COMSOL, a finite element modeling program, and is looking into a number of different objective metrics (such as standard deviation across frequency) to quantify the improvement across different configurations of material placement.
There were two acoustic nuggets this week: the Sony Circle Sound Speaker which looks very pretty (shared by Megan Christensen), and a fellow blogger who has posted on how to make your own acoustic panels (shared by Andrew Hathaway). One other item of interest to our group is that Omaha recently revised its noise ordinance. A student in AE 3300 tweeted about this… good thing, because I don’t really have time to read the news myself these days!
A large group of us are planning to attend the ASHRAE Winter Conference in Chicago, January 21-25, 2012. We’ll be attending a performance of Strauss/Beethoven/Dvorak at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall on that Saturday, 1/21, and may try to plan a possible tour of the facility. If you’re going to ASHRAE and want to join us, please let us know!
On Friday, November 18, a group of NAG students went to the Durham Western Heritage Museum in Omaha to measure impulse responses, for use in calibrating a computer model of the space. The museum was getting ready for its annual ‘lighting of the Christmas tree’ dinner … so we got a sneak preview of the magnificent tree!
The students had a great time, so we’re thinking about continuing this activity and making more measurements of assorted facilities around the Omaha area through the spring. Graduate student Matthew Blevins has agreed to help spearhead this effort (Thanks, Matt!)
NAG students pose with DWHM tree after room acoustic measurement session
At this week’s NAG meeting, James Dougherty presented on his Master’s of Architectural Engineering project which involves computationally modeling the attenuation through elbows in ductwork using COMSOL. He is comparing both square and radiused elbows, using 1″ and 2″ lining of different flow resisitivities. Data on elbow attenuation provided in the ASHRAE Applications Handbook remains sparse, so Dr. Lau and James are interested in developing a model that can provide valid attenuation data on a wider expanse of elbow configurations.
The ‘Acoustic Nugget’ of the week was shared by Andrew Hathaway … dB drag racing! “This American Life” recently re-aired an episode on this dangerous ‘sport’.
Only two more meetings this semester!
At least seven members of the Nebraska Acoustics Group (NAG) attended the recent Acoustical Society of America conference in San Diego, from Oct. 31 – Nov. 4, 2011. Three students from our program presented papers at the conference. A number of our alums were also at the conference; many of them (and other friends of our group) stopped by for our traditional NAG Game Night where the popular games of the evening were “Would You Rather…?” and “Wits and Wagers”.
A good time was had by all!
One highlight of the conference was the tour sponsored by Meyer Sound to visit the Conrad Prebys Music Center at UCSD. The concert hall there is the last designed by Cyril Harris, and the black box theater features a Meyer Sound Constellation system that sounded impressive. Below is a photo of many current and past NAG members who participated in the tour.
NAG members (current and alums) at the Conrad Prebys Music Center tour (from left: Lily Wang, Lauren Ronsse, Michelle Vigeant, David Bradley, Christopher Ainley, Josh Thede, Ellen Peng, Hyun Hong)
We’re all looking forward to the next ASA conference in Hong Kong!
Lauren Ronsse, a recent PhD graduate from our program, received one of two Young Investigator Travel Awards given by the Acoustical Society of America’s Women in Acoustics Committee, to present her paper “Impacts of Classroom Acoustics on Elementary Student Achievement” at the ASA meeting in San Diego, CA. Congratulations, Lauren! Below is a (blurry) photo of Lauren receiving her award at the ASA Women in Acoustics Luncheon on Wednesday, November 2, 2011.
Lauren Ronsse receives a 2011 ASA Women in Acoustics Young Investigator Travel Grant.
Caleb Sieck, an MS student, has received one of the inaugural 2011 National Council of Acoustical Consultants (NCAC) Student Travel Awards, to present his paper “Modeling Treatments to Reduce Sound Transmission through an Open Window into a Room: Effect of Window Thickness” at the recent Acoustical Society Meeting in San Diego, CA. Congratulations, Caleb! Below is a photo of Caleb receiving the award at the NCAC-sponsored student reception in San Diego on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011.
Caleb Sieck receives the NCAC Student Travel Award
Christopher Ainley is working on a NASA-Nebraska funded project to study how time-varying fluctuations can impact human performance and perception. At the 10/24 NAG meeting, he gave a brief introduction on NASA’s interest in our project: the development of commercial low-boom supersonic aircraft for flights across country. (Many in the room were unfortunately not able to attend our alum Jonathan Rathsam’s presentation last spring, which inspired this project!) Ellen Peng shared the ‘Acoustic Nugget’ of the week … if you cry at Hallmark commercials, you may want to have some tissues handy for this one: “Deaf Woman Hears Own Voice”
Many of us are excited to be heading to the San Diego ASA meeting next week. Three of our current students and recent grads will be presenting talks (Carl Hart, Lauren Ronsse, and Caleb Sieck). We will of course be hosting our traditional Nebraska Game Night on Tuesday, 11/1/11, right after TCAA (around 9:30/10 PM)… all NAG alums/friends/supporters are welcome to join!
Speaking of Jonathan Rathsam and San Diego ASA meetings… here is a ‘historic’ photo from the last San Diego ASA meeting in November 2004 – do you recognize any of the folks in the photo??
Who do you recognize from this November 2004 San Diego photo?
A new article by Carl Hart and Dr. Siu-Kit Lau has just come out in Journal of Sound and Vibration: “Active Noise Control with Linear Control Source and Sensor Arrays for A Noise Barrier“. This work aims to test the idea of minimizing diffracted sound by a noise barrier under an approximate pressure gradient control with source and sensor arrays. For more details, please contact Dr. Siu-Kit Lau on slau3@unl.edu or (402) 554-3861.
Additional Insertion Loss Field with Two Control Sources and Two Error Sensors.