The 2009 LIGO SURF Students Present, "The LIGO USA Rap"
Every summer the LIGO Laboratory welcomes a diverse group of undergraduates to collaborate in our gravitational-wave research, as part of Caltech's Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program. Funded in part through the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program of the National Science Foundation, SURF lasts about ten weeks and students may perform their investigations at Caltech or at either of the LIGO Observatories in Hanford, Washington or Livingston, Louisiana.
This year Caltech hosted over two dozen undergraduates in the LIGO SURF program, and the areas of research included, "Advanced Interferometry on the Caltech 40-meter Interferometer," "Fiber Noise Suppression and Second-Harmonic Generation," "Advanced Methods for Gravitational-Wave Analysis of Soft Gamma Repeaters," as well as several others. As customary at the end of the program, the students submitted their research and technical papers, and provided a live presentation of their findings in a seminar very similar to that of professional science conferences.
Our 2009 LIGO SURF undergraduates not only submitted their requisite work, but also left us with a bit of extra credit material rarely found on any syllabus. They produced the "LIGO USA" rap, a toe-tapping music video that pays tribute to their summer with LIGO. Watch as the engineers and scientists of tomorrow lip-sync and boogie to pop classics in a gravitational-wave theme. It's a music video that briskly summarizes the LIGO mission... and gets your groove on as well.
"LIGO USA" - posted on You Tube.
This year Caltech hosted over two dozen undergraduates in the LIGO SURF program, and the areas of research included, "Advanced Interferometry on the Caltech 40-meter Interferometer," "Fiber Noise Suppression and Second-Harmonic Generation," "Advanced Methods for Gravitational-Wave Analysis of Soft Gamma Repeaters," as well as several others. As customary at the end of the program, the students submitted their research and technical papers, and provided a live presentation of their findings in a seminar very similar to that of professional science conferences.
Our 2009 LIGO SURF undergraduates not only submitted their requisite work, but also left us with a bit of extra credit material rarely found on any syllabus. They produced the "LIGO USA" rap, a toe-tapping music video that pays tribute to their summer with LIGO. Watch as the engineers and scientists of tomorrow lip-sync and boogie to pop classics in a gravitational-wave theme. It's a music video that briskly summarizes the LIGO mission... and gets your groove on as well.
"LIGO USA" - posted on You Tube.
