Status Report: Community Equipment Awards

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation

April - September 2015

Admin Group

The NSF provides the Unidata Program Center up to $100k in equipment grant funds each year. In alignment with the Unidata 2018 proposal, the Equipment Awards Program is designed to broaden participation and promote the use of Unidata tools and systems (e.g., THREDDS, NetCDF, IDV, GIS connections) to support education and research on various aspects of climate studies (e.g., diagnostics, change and impacts), by providing grants to be used in the procurement of new computers and equipment including upgrades to existing classroom and laboratory equipment.

This year, special consideration was given to proposals that included one or more of the following:

• Installation of a prototype AWIPS II standalone EDEX server and CAVE client, coupled with the Unidata LDM, to test data ingest and display both locally, and using the CAVE thin client to connect to remote servers
• Implementation of or pilot projects with remotely-accessible storage systems for geoscience data (“cloud-based storage”)
• Implementation of or pilot projects with remote server-based data analysis or visualization systems (“cloud-based analysis”)

A Request for Proposals was sent out on December 22, 2014 with a March 06, 2015 submission deadline. The Review Panel met on March 25 at the Unidata Program Center and recommended that the following proposals be awarded:

• Plymouth State University, Brendan Hoch, Transitioning to the IDV-CAVE: Improving Classroom Technology for Meteorology, Proposal 
• University of California San Diego, Tom DeFanti, Flash I/0 Network Appliance (FIONA) connected to the 40Gb/s PRISM network at UC San Diego for worldwide access to the IDD, Proposal 
• University of Nebraska Lincoln, Adam L. Houston, A Standalone EDEX Server and Enhanced Local IDD/LDM Infrastructure at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Proposal 
• University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, A. Clark Evans, Deployment of AWIPS II at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Proposal 
• Western Kentucky University, Joshua D. Durkee, Expanding Unidata Visualization and Data Analysis for Innovative Meteorological Education at Western Kentucky University, Proposal 

Congratulations to all of the recipients and a special thank you to the Review Panel and the NSF for making the Equipment Awards program possible.

Areas for Committee Feedback

We are requesting your feedback on the following topics:

1. Possible theme(s) for the 2016 Unidata Community Equipment Awards;
   
2. Volunteers to serve on the 2016 Review Panel;

3. Suggestions from previous panel members on how to improve the program

Relevant Metrics

Since taking over the management and administration of the Equipment Awards program in 2003 on behalf of the NSF, Unidata has made 82 awards totaling over $1,000,000.

Prepared  September 2015