AstroTech participants will spend five full days immersed in the experience of building an astronomical instrument. Throughout the week, participants in the AstroTech Summer School will work in teams, gaining hands-on experience in an optics lab, and getting guidance from a team of instructors who work in instrumentation. Participants will be able to pursue different areas, based on their interests, including opto-mechanics, detectors, calibration hardware, electronics, or software. Daily activities will build upon one another toward the goal of building and testing an astronomical spectrograph as a team. Throughout the week there will be sessions focused on working effectively and inclusively on a team, with an opportunity to put what is learned into practice on teams working together during AstroTech. In addition there will be sessions supporting professional skills and a career pathways networking session which will include people from academia, industry, and government who work in instrumentation.  View last year’s AstroTech 2021 agenda here.

AstroTech will be taught by a team of instructors from across the U.S. who work in instrumentation and have an interest in making instrumentation more inclusive. There will be many opportunities, including informal social time, to get to know the instructors and become part of the AstroTech community.