We – the Optics Students Karlsruhe (OSKar) – are a group of enthusiastic

students coming from different academic and cultural backgrounds, united by

our common interest in sharing optics and photonics knowledge.

Orlando Torres Perales

OSKar (Optics Students Karlsruhe e.V.)

AStA am KIT

Adenauerring 7

Karlsruhe 76131

Baden-Württemberg, Germany

board@optics-karlsruhe.de

CHAPTER ORGANIZATION

In OSKar, there are eight officers in charge of organizing the society:

• President — Orlando Torres (SPIE ID: 3654076)

• Vice President — Isabel Allegro (SPIE ID: 3725510)

• Treasurer — Daniel Lechner (SPIE ID: 4027650)

• Secretary — Andrei Krochin (SPIE ID: 3649029)

• Public Relations — Aditya Poonja (SPIE ID: 3726463)

• Event Coordinator — Emilio Orlandini (SPIE ID: 4020312)

• Outreach Coordinator — Jose Montoya (SPIE ID: 3645222)

• Faculty Advisor SPIE – Prof. Dr. Uli Lemmer

There are two kinds of membership: Student member and Society member.

Everybody can become a student member and get access to the minutes of past

meetings and our collection of exam protocols for some lectures given in the

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Being a society member means that the student has to be either a member of

OSA or SPIE and that he or she has affiliated his or her membership with our

student chapter. Society members get additional benefits: They can take part for

free or discounted participation in our activities; they have the right to vote

during elections and can also can be elected for board positions. Any society

member can be an OSKar representative in one of the international conferences

of OSA and SPIE, and many more around the globe. The OSA student membership

is $40 USD per year, and the SPIE student membership $20 USD.

OSKar was officially accepted as SPIE chapter on May 7th, 2012.

Current SPIE members

Name Expires

Juan Acosta 31 January 2018

Mohamed Algafy 29 October 2017

Isabel Allegro 16 November 2017

Artyom Assadillayev 27 October 2017

Philipp Brenner 17 August 2017

Hung Do Thi Xuan 30 June 2017

Xiaoyang Duan 27 August 2017

Amos Egel 9 March 2017

Florian Haberstroh 4 March 2017

Florian Hörmann 22 November 2017

Md Sabbir-Bin Hossain 25 April 2017

Timothy Oshiobughie Imogore 20 June 2017

Pedro Andrei Krochin Yepez 12 October 2017

Kalyan Kumar Radhakrishnan Santhakumari 22 May 2017

Daniel Lechner 5 December 2017

Pengfei Liu 28 January 2018

Jose Montoya 13 December 2017

Cornelius Nawrath 9 November 2017

Michael Oldenburg 12 March 2017

Emilio Orlandini 23 October 2017

Yike Pan 21 April 2017

Aditya Poonja 21 November 2017

Varun Varma Pusapati 17 April 2017

Tobias Scherbaum 29 November 2017

Sravan Shelam 11 January 2018

Orlando Torres Perales 16 November 2017

Badrinath Vadakkapattu Canthadai 23 September 2017

Sagar Wadhwa 21 February 2018

Sentayehu Fetene Wondimu 23 May 2017

Chaozhe Yang 15 May 2017

Activities

Stammtisch

Our group, besides the official logistics and planning meetings, holds a

Stammtisch, a german word to describe informal meetings among the members

of an organization or club, as an important social event to chat and discuss in a

relaxed atmosphere, commonly accompanied by a drink or a nice meal. The

Stammtisch takes place regularly usually on the first week of the month.

Celebrating the Day of Photonics in KIT - October 21st, 2016

In what seemed like a very cloudy day to celebrate light, ended up being a very

interesting environmental conditions that allowed to showcase some fun optical

effects thanks to diffraction gratings and overcast. Starting at 9 AM and with a

very cloudy morning, the OSKar group setup a small tent in the Arbeitskreis

Kultur und Kommunikation (Work group for culture and communication, in

German) and presented the KIT students some of the more interesting optical

experiment demonstrations, such as the thermal camera working principle, and

some diffraction gratings. Fortunately, the weather improved and the principle of

diffraction gratings was able to be presented, using the sun to observe its

spectrum, as well as some environmental effects such as atmospheric dispersion

due to clouds. Some students also used other light sources to observe its spectral

components, discovering for instance that blue LEDs are not as blue as one

would expect, or that some interesting patterns arise from using different light

sources with diffraction gratings. Many students were also interested in several

of our future events, giving OSKar some visibility among the student

organizations in KIT.

Kinder-Uni KIT - August 2016

Last August OSKar started its education outreach activities, thanks to an SPIE

outreach grant used to finance several experiments, including the exhibition

“Optics Beyond the Visible”, where we worked with a heat vision camera. We had

the opportunity to take part in the event “Kinder-Uni” at the Karlsruhe Institute

for Technology, which features six days of exciting lectures and hands on

experiments for hundreds of children every year during summer break. During

five days we had the pleasure to introduce many children to the fascinating world

of optics with a wide spectrum of experiments from a secret LCD screen only

visible to those who wear polarized glasses to our main attraction the heat vision

camera!

We really enjoyed the opportunity to show children what we all are passionate

about – light. Beyond that, the children’s inquiring mind and ability to be

astonished was highly inspiring for all of us! We are looking forward to many

more outreach activities in the future, especially with our cooperation partner –

KIT’s High School Student’s Lab (Schülerlabor).

Excursion to Karl Storz, Tuttlingen - July 12th, 2016

On the 12th of July, OSKar and KSOP organized a visit to Karl Storz, located in the

beautiful city of Tuttlingen by the Danu be (Donau). Karl Storz is a family-owned

company, after its founder Karl Storz died in 1996, his daughter took his position

and has received several awards since then. Karl Storz produces endoscopes

(from greek “look” “inside”) for several applications. Apart from their known use

in humans and animals, endoscopes are also needed to check airplanes (engines),

old buildings and cars. The visit started with a tour through the production site,

where the students met several employees and got to know their work in detail.

All components used in the endoscopes, such as lenses and optical fibers, are

produced at Karl Storz. Even the software and the special furniture in the

integrated OR (operation room) are designed and fabricated by the company

itself.

During the tour through the “World of endoscopes“ the participants saw how the

endoscopes are used in medicine and had the opportunity of participating in a

simulation of a liver operation. They also got to know the most advanced

endoscopes and their applications in daily life. At the end of the tour the students

learned how fluorescent markers are used to detect cancer cells. After

illuminating the tissue of interest with a blue spectrum, cancer cells emit in the

red region of the spectrum and are easily detected by colour contrast imaging.

Finally there was a question and answer session about internships, thesis and job

opportunities at Karl Storz with the HR Department, which was very helpful and

enlightening for the Master’s and PhD students. A KSOP alumni also took part in

this last session, talking to the students and explaining his steps towards working

at Karl Storz.

Fraunhofer Talk by Dr. Eilenberger – April 20th, 2016

On April 20th, OSKar invited Dr. Falk Eilenberger, from Fraunhofer IOF, to give a

talk on applications on nano-optics. The talk was held in the lecture hall of

Lichttechnisches Insititut (LIT), at the KIT. Our secretary, Orlando Torres

introduced the speaker. This lecture gave rise to huge interest among the

students. The most impressive part was the anticipation of the development of

the future of optics, i.e. optics in a very small size down to the nano-scale.

Dr. Eilenberger’s talk gave our students a space for discussion about nanoscience.

Nanoscience is not only the concern of optics, but also the focus of many other

research directions. We can imagine that in the coming years, the applications in

nano-optics and other branches of nanoscience will play a broader and more

significant role in our life.

After the talk, our colleague in charge of public relations, Isabel Allegro, also

interviewed some of the audience for feedback. The interviewees regarded this

lecture as comprehensive and helpful. Our chapter will provide as more

attractive activities as possible in the future.

Excursion to SICK AG, Waldkirch – January 27th, 2016

On January 27th, under the leading of Dr. Martin Lauer from the Institute of

Measurement and Control Systems (MRT) at the KIT, a group of our OSKar

members with other KSOP master students paid a visit to SICK AG. This company

is located in Freiburg in Breisgau and has earned a reputation around Germany

for its optical sensing technology.

The staff there guided us through their production line and logistics department,

and gave us an introduction on the history and newly developed products of the

company. Afterwards they made two presentations for us: one of them focused

on the technical development of SICK’s products, and the other concerning

mainly the career and job opportunities in the company. Through this visit, our

students gained more knowledge on the optical sensing and its applications in

security, communication and other fields.

Lasertag, Karlsruhe – December 17th, 2015

As part of the end-of-the-year traditions in OSKar, the Laser Tag 2015 Edition

took place in Laser Base, located in the Oststadt (East City) of Karlsruhe on

December 17th 2015.

OSKar general meeting 2016 & board elections – 25th November 2016

On Friday, November 26, the regular annual meeting of OSKar was held. Even

though the meeting started in the evening on a workday, 25 people came to

summarize our last year achievements and discuss next year’s activities.

Then the election time has come. After several circles of voting, the renewed

board was formed:

– President: Orlando Torres

– Vice President: Isabel Allegro

– Treasurer: Daniel Lechner

– Secretary: Andrei Krochin

– Public Relations & Publicity: Aditya Poonja

– Outreach coordinator: Jose Montoya

– Event coordinator: Emilio Orlandini

Attending SPIE Student Leadership Conference

Last August Andrei Krochin attended in representation of OSKar the SPIE

Student Leadership Conference in San Diego.

During the conference Andrei got to know members from chapters in different

countries, which whom it was possible to exchange opinions and experiences on

how to manage a chapter, which are the biggest challenges and how every

chapter approach those challenges.

Furthermore, during the conference it was possible to establish contact with

different companies, which offered cooperation with OSKar. Among those

Heidelberg Engineering and PhysikInstrumente (PI).

Besides connecting with other chapters and contacting different companies,

during the conference, Andrei attended the workshop “Dumpster Optics:

Teaching Optics with Junk” in which different ideas for outreach activities were

collected. Those ideas were complemented during the Optics Outreach games, in

which a lot of ideas were exchanged with other chapters.

OSKar: Financial Balance 2015 - 2016

Balance 01.01.2015

3,985.68

Income OSA Budget Spring 807.28

Stadtmobil Carsharing Payback 263.24

Expenses Bank Fees -45.75

Joint Event with jDPG Karlsruhe -75.00

Excursion to Trumpf - Ditzingen -170.00

IONS Karlsruhe 2015 9.17

Symposium Stuttgart 0.00

Photonics Science Slam Stuttgart -113.34

Stadtmobil Fees -199.00

Solar Eclipse Event -67.05

Fees Homepage -35.88

SPIE Visiting Lecturer Professor Jacob Scheuer -563.45

Excursion to Agilent Technologies -133.85

LaserTag -90.00

Balance 23.11.2015

3,572.05 Cash Balance

320.60

Total Balance 23.11.2015

3,892.65

Balance 23.11.2015

3,892.65

Income SPIE Grant 1,147.92

OSA Grant 719.22

SPIE Outreach Grant 1,929.66

Expenses Account Costs -75.30

Lasertag -140.00

Stadtmobil Carsharing -433.45

IONS Cleaning Fees -100.00

Fraunhofer F&B -280.00

Agilent Excursion 20.00

Sick Excursion -120.00

Guest Lecturer Expenses -463.56

Website -35.88

Outreach T-Shirts -204.66

Conrad (Heat Vision Camera) -1,387.50

OSA BBQ -185.38

Locker -50.00

Innovation Lab Trip 30.00

Day of Photonics -35.13

Total Balance 23.11.2016

4,228.59

Pending Reimbursements ~200€

The future: Plans for 2017

Optics Students Karlsruhe wants to further connect with the community and

develop further networking in the area of Karlsruhe.

To this extent, we will continue working with local authorities and institutions to

get the wonders of optics and photonics to the community in general. The first

half of the year 2017 will be spent working with the Karlsruhe Institute of

Technology in events that promote scientific research to young crowds and

women, especially in “Girls Day”, where we want to work with our female

colleagues to bring our new optical experiments to show that the world of optics

and photonics is incredibly interesting and has many different applications in

today’s technologies and every day appliances.

We will also participate again in “Kinder Uni”, bringing optical experiments to

young children, and was one of the most interesting and engaging events from

last year.

Lastly, we will encourage participation with other groups in the university for

joined projects and cooperation. Currently we will be holding conversations with

the International Department Student Association (SAID) for joint events and

cooperation on our optics-related projects, and the student association of the

university (AStA, german acronym) for participation in joint projects for “night of

science” in 2017.