Foundation’s previously sponsored projects

Renovation of Badminton courts at boat club

A foundation stone for this work was laid by Padmashree B. G. Shirke on Dec. 22, 2005. The courts were ready and used in February at ZEST 2006 (an annual inter engineering sports meet organized by COEP). COEP engineers won Gold and Silver medals in Men’s and Women’s badminton events at ZEST 2006.

Contributors: Haresh Shah, B.G.Shirke,

Sandeep Johri, Santosh Rao, Dattaraya G Shetti, Hitesh Merchant, Pramod Thuse

Assisting Kshitija Deshpande when she attended the educational course called Consortium or Undergraduate Research and Education in astronomy (CUREA) at Mount Wilson observatory, Pasadena, California

Request for your support

Contributors:

Patel Prashant, Pusalkar Sheetal, Joglekar Nikhil, Shringi Shashank, Shankar Nagraj, Bapat Udyan, Motiani Naresh, Thatte Abhijit, Joshi Sonali, Khadke Anil, Abhyankar Anand, Bhat Ajay, Biswas Pradeepto, Ingale Sai, Sane Rina, Samudra Sameer, Renavikar Mukul, Mungse Pritam,

Iyer Siddharth, Betigeri Sudarshan, Kulkarni Sanjeev,

Sardeshmukh Swanand, Dahotre Narendra, Kshirsagar Sumedha,

Dhavalikar Sachin, Aware Kiran, Patil Sandeep, Bhat Nikhil,

Waghdhare Nikhil, Phadnis Sachin, Dhavali Prakash, Bet Sachin,

Gurav Sanjay, Kadam Ankur, Mahajan Vishal, Badwe Sunil, Vakharia Kaushik, Kothawade Sachin, Walimbe Vivek, Nandedkar Anjali, Nene Milind, Soman Chinmay, Bapat Kedar, Joshi Vivek, Mulay Kalpana, Sampat Rishi, Lende Prashant, Shastri Tanya, Phadke Mihir, Panse Parag,

Kharalkar Nachiket, Haresh Shah

Badminton court before repairs

Badminton court after renovations

Badminton court repairs

A Letter by Kshitija Deshpande

Thank you very much for helping me to avail this great opportunity of attending the educational course called Consortium for Undergraduate Research and Education in Astronomy (CUREA) at Mount Wilson Observatory, Pasadena, California, USA. Without the funds raised by the COEP Charitable foundation and the help of all alumni, I would not have been able to attend the course. Special thanks to Prof. Haresh Shah, Chairman, COEP Charitable Foundation for giving personal attention to this matter and Prof. Mandke because of whom I could contact the COEP charitable foundation. My sincere thanks to the Board of directors of the COEP charitable foundation and the alumni for helping me in the best possible way.

My two week stay at Mount Wilson Observatory CA along with seven others was indeed a very educational and memorable one. In the first week, we had lectures on solar and stellar astronomy covering topics like solar rotation, helioseismoloy, stellar evolution, physics and mathematics of black holes, interferometry, spectral lines imaging and Doppler shift imaging. Along with it we also had practical sessions on CCD, photometric and LRGB imaging.

Another important part of the program was the tours. We visited the 60", 100" optical telescopes at Mt Wilson, 200" Optical telescope at Mount Palomar, Caltech University, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) interferometer and Berkeley Infra Red interferometer.

In the second week, we had to work on a project of our choice. I worked on the Zeeman line splitting in the sunspots. I observed the sunspots and found line broadening indicating Zeeman split and also estimated the magnetic field in one of the sunspots.

Mr. Christopher Lawrence arranged a get-together with the COEP alumni- Mr. Arvind Chawathe, Mr. Sameer Vaidya, Mr. Paresh Rajwat, Mr. Tushar Dhorje, in the bay area. I thank them for hosting me in the bay area. It was nice meeting them all.

Overall, this was a great experience and I am really happy with the kind of exposure and knowledge I received in the field of astronomy. I am sure this is going to be a stepping-stone for my career in astronomy.

- Kshitija Deshpande

Shirish Sandhipal Bagade (Batch of 2004 Metallurgy) required an urgent open heart surgery. COEP alumni, including Prof. Haresh Shah helped with the funds.

From the early days since before the foundation acquired tax exempt status, several alumni members contributed substantial funds to get the effort off the ground.

Robot study circle

Members attended an

International competition –

ROBOCON 2007. This competition involved building a manual and an autonomous machine. Alumni can contribute funds and technical skills to this

project.

$2500.00 (2007)