The purpose of this program is to demonstrate the use of Optics and its practical applications in communication, imaging, computers, even Hollywood! to local Colleges, High School, and Middle School students. Our Outreach program is free and we generally go to schools in the North Bay Area. To have the Optics Club come to your school, simply email the Outreach Chairs, or any one of us and we'll get back to you shortly.

Outreach Chairs:
Nicholas Antipa naantipa at ucdavis dot edu
Shayna Khatri sskhatri at ucdavis dot edu
Sarah Hsia shra at ucdavis dot edu

Places where we shared our optics this year:
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• Oct 21st: Preview Day. Members from the Optics Club were in The Pavilion at UC Davis showcasing the Optics Club and offering information about the OSE program. There they also talked about geometrical optics, diffraction gratings, lasers, polarizers and the annual Laser Maze held during Picnic Day.
• Feb. 24th: The Explorit Center, Davis,CA.
• April 7th: Members built a float to promote the UC Davis Optics Program. The float was supposed to represent a laser engraving machine, a play on words of the Picnic Day theme "Make your mark."
• April 7th: UC Davis Welcome Week. Members of the Optics Club promoted the Optical Science and Engineering undergraduate program. Members also explained basic optics prinicipals and displayed a miniature laser maze.
• April 14th: Laser Maze for UC Davis’s Picnic Day. Approximately 500 people ran through the maze this year.
• May 23rd: Center High School, Natomas, CA. Shared Optics with the after school science program.
  

Some Experiments we do:
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• physical optics - using various concave, convex and Fresnel lenses, we illustrate the basics of physical optics such as the focal point, radius of curvature, converging and diverging rays, and ray tracing. Students will have a chance to look through each lens and see how light travels through it.
• Michelson interferometer - An ether is essential for the propagation of a wave... or is it? Water waves propagates by water, sound waves propagate by air, is it essential then, for light waves to propagate through a certain medium as well? We answer this with the help of our Michelson Interferometer, and demonstrate the Interferometer's application in the industry.
• waveguides with jello molds – We make a shallow dish of jello ahead of time, cut strips of jello to demonstrate how waveguides work. In the case of jello, jello has the higher index of refraction than light so the beam of light propagates internally throughout the jello - like fiber optics!
• polarization – We have two identical square sheets of polarizers from our optics suitcase – Slowly turn them perpendicular to one another and watch the kids go "ooh" and "aah" while watching the polarized squares go dark. Then, put another smaller square of polarized material in the middle at a 45 degree angle and show that that they can see through that small window even though nothing else can be seen through the other polarizers. We will draw out how it works with simple diagrams and demonstrate usefulness with sunglasses and LCD phone or computer screens!
• Laser Maze - Everyone’s favorite. See Link.