11/13/2006
It's time to light the lights
Jessica Selby , Daily Times


COVENTRY - It wasn't their classroom and their teachers weren't presenting a lesson, but a light show still added up to a science education for students at Tiogue Elementary School.
Mike Dindoffer, a physics master, visited the school recently with a lesson in lasers. Dindoffer works as a laser science teacher for Prismatic Magic and travels to schools giving science teachers a break from their traditional lesson plans.
He invites students into his laboratory, in this case the gymnasium at Tiogue School, and explains, through visual components and demonstration, the difference between lasers and ordinary light.
"Laser, which stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, is tightly focused light that travels faster than a jet engine," Dindoffer told the students at Tiogue.
Dindoffer told the students and then showed them that laser light can only travel in a straight path. This path can, however, be interrupted, he said, by something called "specular reflection," which is achieved by using a mirror.
Dindoffer also spoke to students about the three primary colors and how he can use them to make all the colors in the rainbow. With laser light, the three primary colors, Dindoffer said, are red, blue and green. He used these colors and specular reflection to create familiar images such as Shrek and Sponge Bob Squarepants on a large screen in front of the crowd.
He also used the laser light, a black balloon and a white balloon to demonstrate how black absorbs light and white reflects it. The black balloon - when targeted with the laser light - popped. The white balloon reflected the light, casting a green aura above the crowd through the balloon.
The kids in the audience, sitting outside the cordoned-off section where Dindoffer and his equipment were positioned, applauded and let out hollers of excitement.
"The way I run the show is we do about 20 minutes of a science lesson and then about 40 minutes of a choreographed laser light show," Dindoffer said. "We mix the lasers with music and then let the kids have fun with it. The adults usually really like it, too."
Many of the teachers and faculty at Tiogue School said they did. Along with their students, the teachers clustered before the screen and watched intently as Dindoffer created the laser light show for his audience.
"I do oversee the show, but most of it is set up in advance," he said. "I may add certain things in that could affect the music or slow down or increase the pace of the music or increase or decrease its volume depending on the group watching the film."
Dindoffer said he travels all over New England performing these laser light shows and, in the many years that he has done so, has never had a child leave scared or an adult leave unhappy with the performance.
His record was not interrupted at Tiogue School because everyone there, including the school principal, Denise Richtarik, and the PTO parents who organized the event, said they were fascinated with the show.