Chapter president Andrew Linson (Left) and DAA President Jerry Peplinski (right) stand next to our newly printed vinyl banner! Credit to Joe Daily (Delta Active & Pledge Trainer) for the design of the banner.

This fall semester, Kappa Eta Kappa fraternity participated in the 2013 Engineering Expo (http://engineeringexpo.wisc.edu/). This three day event is held every two years at the College of Engineering campus, and gives engineering organizations as well as individual UW students an opportunity to build, test, and display an engineering project to the general public.

Elementary, middle, and high school students are invited to explore the exhibits and interact with the hands-on displays. The event is also well-attended by members of the local community of all ages. This was an excellent community outreach event for the fraternity.

This year, the KHK project was called the “Megatactilus.” This device is a multi-touch computer table, similar to a large iPad or Microsoft Surface. Instead of a capacitive glass touchscreen, commonly found in tablets and cellular phones, it uses a pair of commodity webcams and an array of infrared light emitting diodes (LEDs) to read out the presence of a finger or other object blocking the path of the light. The camera is designed to filter out visible light, so only IR can get through, while a separate LCD projector (with an IR filter) was employed to simultaneously project an image on to the screen.

Combined with software processing and calibration, the device enables a user to interact with a commodity Windows 7 PC, using multiple fingers to click, drag, and swipe input to the screen. As a demonstration of the technology, we had a web browser open to the popular game Angry Birds (photo shows active member Dale Saari teaching a middle school student how to play).
Credit goes to Andrew Linson for building the chassis, Dale Saari and Matt From for designing the LED and camera system, Dan Boehm for additional help, as well as other active members for their contributions. We would also like to acknowledge the generous funding support from the Delta Alumni Association for materials.

Photos & Captions:

1) Photo of the device, showing the inside of the chassis with commodity webcam, stereo speakers, and mirror for LCD projection.

2) KHK Active Dale Saari demonstrating Angry Birds to a middle school student.

3) KHK Active Dale Saari attending the table at the Expo.

4) A tri-fold display was prepared, outlining the design and theory behind an optical multi-touch surface.

The Delta Chapter House hosted a work day this weekend, led by DAA President Jerry Peplinski.

A major milestone happened today at the work day. The KHK Delta Flag and Banner were hung up today in the Chapter Office (Executive Board Meeting Room). Photos of the work day are attached below, with the following caption credits:

1) Tom Irwin (DAA director) Left and Steve Paugh (DAA Treasurer) Right move the banner from Steve’s home to Tom’s van for transporting to Delta House for installation.

2) Filing cabinet making it’s way along the 3rd floor hallway.

3) Filing cabinet movers (Left to Right) Motoya Higashi (Alumnus), Benjamin Lange (Active), Aaron Lang (Active) and Drew Beatty (Active).

4) Delta Flag Hung on west wall of the Chapter Office.

The 86th National Convention of Kappa Eta Kappa was held this past weekend (23-February-2013) at Beta Chapter in Minneapolis, MN. The Delta Alumni Association submitted a document listing all 141 dues-paying members of DAA to the National Executive Council (NEC). Representing the DAA with six votes were:

Jerry Peplinski (2 votes)
Samuel Hurley (1 vote)
Alex Smith (2 votes)
Scott Woods (1 vote)

In addition to attending the meeting, DAA members Jerry Peplinski, Samuel Hurley, and Scott Woods drove up to St. Cloud, MN to observe the status of the Iota house, which was purchased thanks to a loan from the Delta Housing Corporation and is currently under extensive renovations.

Finally, the DAA would like to congratulate the four new officers of national. A photo is attached.

From left to right:
Scott Woods, Treasurer (DAA Director)
Maggie White, Secretary (Delta Active Member & Secretary)
Luke Grigore, Vice President (Beta Chapter President)
Samuel Hurley, President (DAA Director)

DAA meeting was held at Union South Madison WI on 2/9/13.

In attendance were:
Standing (left to right)
Mark Van Susteren (DAA Director)
Bud Kehrli (DHC Treasurer)
Tom Irwin (DAA Director)
Matt Buck (DAA Secretary and NEC Secretary)
Steve Paugh (DAA Treasurer)
Sam Hurley (DAA Director)
Ian Powell (Chapter President)
Dale Saari (Chapter Pledge Trainer)
Matt From (Chapter Treasurer)
Alex Smith (DAA Vice President)
Sitting (left to right)
Jerry Peplinski (DAA President and DHC President)
Scott Woods (DAA Director and NEC Treasurer)
Sean Scannell (Delta Alumnus)