AR-2020-21

33 rd ANNUAL REPORT 2020-21 165 ACE-RPL- ACTIVITIES An online course titled An Introduction to Optical andInfrared Interferometry, was organized by the Teaching Learning Centre of theAstronomy Centre for Educators, IUCAA, from the end of July 2020 till the end of September 2020 with Jean Surdej (Honorary Director, Extragalactic Astrophysics and Space Observatories Group, University of Liege, Belgium) as the instructor. Avinash Deshpande (IUCAA) also gave a set of four lectures on Fourier Transforms. These interactions were also via Zoom, while the Learning Management System Moodle was set up where all video presentations, quizzes, assignments, etc. were available. Over a hundred participants consisting largely of college and university faculty An Introduction to Optical and Infrared Interferometry Antenna Design Competition: SWANtenna– 2020 members from India, as well as a few from outside the country were registered for the course. This course was coordinated by Prakash Arumugasamy (IUCAA). During the time of this pandemic, efforts were also being made by the Teaching Learning Centre of the Astronomy Centre for Educators, IUCAA, to either design and later build, or do experiments with equipment and/or software, which the participants have access to or may be available at their homes. One such initiative was the design of a low-frequency antenna for radio astronomical observations as part of the Sky Watch Array Network (SWAN), which started at the Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru, by Avinash Deshpande (IUCAA). This competition titled SWANtenna – 2020, was announced in May 2020, and was open to teams of faculty members and students from across the country, with the possibility of teams being across institutions to promote inter-institutional collaboration. In an overwhelming response, over 35 teams, involving about 70 facultymembers, whowerementors, and over 300 students, fromacross the country registered and worked during the four months, from June to September 2020, towards designing an antenna element with the desired specifications. WIPL-D, a Serbian firm specializing in EM simulation and software in the field of electromagnetism, generously provided free access to one of their