The CCI annual retreat was held over the weekend in southern California, where many SHArK participants from all over the US converged for a special SHArK session on Saturday night. It was great to get to meet some of the participants and talk to them about how the SHArK kit is being implemented at their sites and their current research!

Carl Wamser and Ella Wong from Portland State site talked about how the kits were used in their summer solar energy class and the results they obtained using the pipetting method. Akiko Fillinger along with Josh Thomas from Ithaca College showed their results from analyzing the printer template and how a handheld XRF could be used to do elemental analysis on the different combinations. Billy McCulloch from Oleg Ozerov’s group at Texas A&M was able to share with us how they are working to modify the printer driver to have a more accurate printing template and work with a local science-oriented high school to implement the SHArK project. Additionally, Gildevin Jagudajev and Stephanie Cheung from Margret Geselbracht and Lee Sharpe’s group at Grinnell and Reed Colleges respectively, presented posters on their SHArK research. Scott Wicker Jr. from Ed Walker’s group at Southern University presented their research on further investigating promising compositions determined from a SHArK hit using phase diagrams.

We were also happy to have the recent southern California additions in attendance as well as the high school students that are working with the Caltech graduate students and a high school teacher from the Colorado Rocky Mountain high school. Jillian Dempsey and James McKone from Caltech presented their experiences with the high school students thus far. It was a great opportunity for everyone to interact and share their experiences with each other. Check back soon for some great pictures from the weekend and also exciting new ideas for the future of the SHArK project!!