A video greeting from Little River Research.

A happy holiday video in a few of the languages spoken at LRRD.  I have such amazing colleagues.

The awesome multilingual (and keyboard playing) kids are Meriam's Adam and Radia, and the sweet vocals in French are from the three of them.  (I rocked the cowbell.)

Amazing last day of AGU 2011.

Today we finished an amazing five days at AGU in San Francisco.

We planned for months.   Meriam, Lily, Christina, and Alee took care of complex logistics.  Nathan, Jim,  and I built and packed parts for the new Em3.

We worked together when a shipper lost half our stuff, and celebrated its recovery and arrival 15 minutes before the exhibits opened on Tuesday.

Hundreds of scientists and students visited our booth, many with strong interest in using our models for teaching and research. 

Dozens of scientists from outside the United States left cards; from France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

Lily was her usual awesome self (especially with the little visitors)  and our volunteer, SIUC-IGERT PhD candidate Anne Hayden helped with setup, teardown, and the many times when we had twenty or more visitors at once.

Tonight Lily took us through bustling downtown San Francisco to get the best in Thai food, ordered in the native language, of course.

Thanks to everybody.

SIUC students in the LRRD lab

Students armor a stream using vegetation in the Em2

Graduate and undergraduate students in SIUC's watershed management class visited our lab today.

Our prototyper, Nathan, hosted them as they experimented with the effects of construction in rivers.

It's always a joy to see all those hands in the Em2!

We've all spent a lot of time doing community outreach and education this year; from day camps to elementary schools to postgraduate labs, our team has taught hundreds of students around Southern Illinois.
It's what we're here for.

--Alee

Nathan and SIUC students perform a lab exercise in the Em2

SIUC students build around a model culvert in the Em2

AGU Day Two. Wow!

Another incredible day, with hundreds of interesting visitors from all over the world.

AGU Day One, we dodge lightning.

We went to bed last night after arranging plans B, C, and others for our lost plastic media, including coffee grounds and plastic shipped up from Long Beach.

Here you see the happy, frantic unpacking of the lost shipment this morning, ten minutes before the exhibits opened.

We were visited by hundreds of scientists from many counties.

Lily worked her magic with a shy little girl from France.



Wonderful day.

LRRD  peeps made this happen, thanks.

Lightning strikes us at AGU.

The Fall AGU Meeting in San Francisco is amazing. Twenty thousand students and scientists from all over the world.

We've wanted to be here for years, but it's so expensive. About $15,000 for a booth, with all expenses accounted for.

We're finally here after months of planning and study, of logistics, travel, hotels, shipping. We arrived a day early, accounting for any possible problem, delayed flights, illness, whatever.

But our shipper (YRC) lost half our stuff; including all our plastic media.

A bad, rare thing, a lightning strike at the worst time. We hope it'll be found and delivered tomorrow. We're working on other plans, but there aren't many options when you're thousands of miles from home.

Photos are Lily and Anne Hayden, an SIUC grad student whose travel we funded in exchange for a little help. And Callan Bentley goofing with Lily at the AGU Social Media Soiree tonight.

Emriver Em3 at AGU

Lily Hwang and I will set up our new Emriver Em3 at AGU in San Fransisco next week.

Here you see Lily at GSA, a CAD drawing, and Lily, Christina, Alee, and Nathan celebrating the first Em3's arrival in October.

The Em3's form comes from my two decades of experience using and refining these models. 

By design, the Em3 is portable, so it doesn't need dedicated lab space, and can be used outdoors. 

But it's big enough for serious research, and we're working on instrumentation and many other options.

We're going to have a blast at AGU, please drop by!