International Collaboration

Our project was a collaboration between researchers and students in three different countries on two continents. Our team was located at the Florida A&M University / Florida State University College of Engineering in Tallahassee, FL, USA. Our sponsors were at CERN, the particle physics research lab, near Geneva, Switzerland. A team from Bucharest, Romania, was also assigned to the project.

The project involved people in the United States, Switzerland, and Romania (map from www.atlapedia.com)

CERN

Located in Switzerland near Geneva, the CERN particle physics research center’s time zone is GMT + 1:00 (GMT + 2:00 during the summer), making it 6 hours ahead of Tallahassee, Florida (7 hours ahead during the summer). Our work has been in support of the LHC project at CERN, and our sponsors, Dr. Luca Bottura and Dr. Nathan Brooks, were both located in Switzerland for the duration of our work.

Communication with our sponsors at CERN was accomplished exclusively through email. Dr. Brooks was our primary point of contact. Periodically, we updated him on our progress, addressed questions to him in order to clarify important issues, and forwarded to him our written documents.

Politehnica University of Bucharest

The Politehnica University of Bucharest (PUB) is located in the capital city of Romania. The time zone in Bucharest is GMT + 7:00 (GMT + 8:00 during the summer). Regular, detailed communication was a necessity between the teams at FAMU/FSU and PUB to ensure project cohesion. To this end, several different forms of communication were used.

Email

Throughout the year, much of the important and productive correspondence occurred by email. 

Video Conferencing

Locally, we made use of video conferencing equipment and webcams. Microsoft NetMeeting, a webcam conference and application-sharing program available freely with Windows XP, and Skype, an internet-based audio and video program by Skype, Ltd, were used. 

Tele-conferencing  

We set up a bi-weekly teleconference with PUB at 9:00 AM local time (4:00 PM Bucharest) on Wednesdays. We largely held to the biweekly schedule for the duration of the project.

Blackboard File Exchange

A web-based software tool called Blackboard is available to professors at the FAMU/FSU College of Engineering. We made use of Blackboard to upload and share files, documents, and presentation slides among ourselves and with the PUB team.

Yahoo Messenger

Another valuable form of communication was Yahoo Messenger, an internet chat program by Yahoo, Inc. Yahoo Messenger became invaluable for quick questions, instantaneous clarifications, and detailed development of ideas between the two teams.

Work Breakdown

Early in the fall semester, an effective and sensible division of labor was top priority. It was decided to divide the work among the two teams in the following way:

For more information about the international collaborations involved with our project, click here.

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