IEEE Boise Section

Attendees will learn about SCADA fundamentals and services provided to the company by the Technical Operations Group. The discussion will include threats to electric utilities who are faced with increasingly frequent cyberattacks.  Some of the recent notable attacks in the world will be reviewed and Young will describe what the SCADA/EMS Department is doing to mitigate potential threats. Brief Bio - Young graduated from Boise State University with BSEE and has worked in the power industry since 2001. Young has been a professional engineer since 2010 and has a broad range of work experience. He has held multiple engineering positions, including SCADA engineer at GE, Field Project Engineer at TVA, Project Engineer on Wolverine Creek Wind Park in Eastern Idaho, and Building Locomotives at Motive Power.  Young has been with Idaho Power since 2008 and his current working as a technical operations engineer. Speaker(s): Young Lim, Location: Room: CHQ Auditorium - First Floor 1221 W. Idaho St. ATTN: Communications Department (Mark Bussert) Boise, Idaho 83702

Co-sponsored by: John Stubban The interconnected power system in the U.S. has experienced the addition of increasing amounts of inverter-based generation resources over the past several years.  In particular, a large amount of utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants have been connected directly to the transmission system, including some in Idaho Power’s area.  Two recent power system disturbances in the western U.S. resulted in unexpected loss of hundreds of megawatts of utility-scale solar PV generation, which caught the attention of the North American Reliability Corporation (NERC).  This presentation will cover these solar PV generation-loss events, NERC’s findings and recommendations, take-aways we should keep in mind at Idaho Power, as well as some inverter basics and trends.   Speaker(s): Trevor Schultz, Location: Bldg: CHQ Auditorium Idaho Power 1221 W. Idaho St. Boise, Idaho 83702

*** Demo event for showing new vTools @Event feature. Q: contact Chris Gunning ([email protected]) *** Quantum computing could dramatically improve computational efficiency for particular tasks. A number of physical systems, spanning much of modern physics, are being developed for quantum computation.  We will review the fundamentals and examine the various components being considered as part of quantum computing, including the QC venue at SC17. Speaker(s): Randy Rannow, Location: Boise, Idaho

Co-sponsored by: [email protected] This presentation will provide an overview of the devices used for overcurrent protection on electric utility distribution systems; including breakers, reclosers, sectionalizers, and fuses.  It will also demonstrate how to coordinate these devices to limit the effects of short-circuit currents to the smallest area, and maintain reliability of service to customers. Speaker(s): Rick Kidneigh, Location: Room: Main Auditorium Bldg: Idaho Power HQ 1221 W Idaho St. Boise, Idaho 83713

*** Training event for new chapter officers. Q: contact Chris Gunning ([email protected]) *** Speaker(s): Chris, Location: Boise, Idaho

Co-sponsored by: I Virtual reality is changing the way products, buildings and even homes are being designed. Join us for a panel discussion on how virtual reality is impacting the way engineers, architects and designers create. What challenges come with using this new technology within the workflow and how is improving the process itself? Find out! Panelists:      Tasche Streib - SGW Designworks - Co-Founder & President     James Marsh - CSHQA -     Preston Lewis - Black Box VR - Co-Founder & CCO Join us between 4:30-6:30 PM on Tuesday, March 5th at IVRC. Light appetizers and drinks will be provided. We kindly ask that you RSVP so that we can have an accurate count for food/beverages. The panel discussion will start at approximately 5:15 PM. Cost is $5 for Annual Members, $8 for IVRC Friends, and goes directly toward food/beverage costs. RSVP through the Eventbrite link below OR, cash/check accepted at the door, but please email [email protected] to let us know you'll be coming. Location: Boise, Idaho

Co-sponsored by: IEEE Boise Computer Society Presentation for three generations of retro machines from one of the original developers of the Atari and Amiga. Speaker(s): Joe Decuir, Agenda: 3:45PM-4:00PM Networking and refreshments 4:00PM-5:15PM Presentation Location: Room: 110 and First Floor Bldg: RUCH Boise State University 1375 W University Dr Boise, Idaho 83706

Co-sponsored by: [email protected] : This presentation will focus on recent construction of two fish ladders and an adult steelhead and salmon barrier weir at Idaho Power’s Pahsimeroi Hatchery. Speaker(s): Jerrod Vaughn, Location: Bldg: Main Auditorium Idaho Power Headquarters 1221 W Idaho St. Boise, Idaho 83713

Anthony will present results from his research into the effects of major global events on the Bitcoin blockchain and network. Speaker(s): Anthony Luo , Agenda: 6:00 Networking, meet & greet (refreshments provided) 6:30 Presentation Location: Room: RUCH 103 Bldg: RUCH Boise State University 1375 W University Dr Boise, Idaho 83706

Monthly meeting Agenda: Budget review Event planning Review and comments on growing our community activities Other items Location: Boise, Idaho

Co-sponsored by: Boise State University (ECE380 class) Most engineers do not receive adequate people skills training in school or on the job. As a result, many engineers are grossly underprepared to face the interpersonal challenges they inevitably encounter while working alongside other engineers and engineering managers. In order to be most effective in our careers, we need to continually grow both our technical and non-technical skills. Speaker(s): Tony Munson, Location: Room: MEC 106 Bldg: Micron Engineering Center 1020 S. Manitou Ave Boise State University Boise, Idaho 83706

Spiking neural networks are biologically plausible counterparts of the artificial neural networks, artificial neuralnetworks are usually trained with stochastic gradient descent and spiking neural networks are trained with spiketiming dependant plasticity. Training deep convolutional neural networks is a memory and power intensive job.Spiking networks could potentially help in reducing the power usage. There is a large pool of tools for one tochose to train artificial neural networks of any size, on the other hand all the available tools to simulate spikingneural networks are geared towards computational neuroscience applications and they are not suitable for real lifeapplications. In this work we focus on implementing a spiking CNN using Tensorflow to examine behaviour of thenetwork and empirically study the effect of various parameters on learning capabilities and also study catastrophicforgetting in the spiking CNN and weight initialization problem in R-STDP using MNIST and N-MNIST datasets. Speaker(s): Ruthvik Vaila, Location: Room: 114 Bldg: Micron Engineering Building MEC 114 Boise State University Boise, Idaho 83706

Learn about the state of robotics and automation plus the biggest challenges facing robotics development today. Presented by Toyota Advanced Logistics (Bastien Solutions) roboticists working from their laboratory right here in Boise. Tiffany Greyson is the Lead Robotics Controls Engineer at Toyota Advanced Logistics after 13 years at HP as a PCB architect. She is a mommy of 3 kids and enjoys making jewelry out of electronics in her spare time. Akash Jinandra graduated from University of Central Florida 2 years ago with degrees in Computer and Electrical Engineering. He is now a robotics R&D engineer and designs autonomous fork trucks, robotic shuttles and product-picking arms. Akash got married and bought a house in the last three months so he is pretty much an adult now. Agenda: 6:15PM – 6:30PM Networking6:30PM – 7:30PM Presentation Location: Room: 110 Bldg: RUCH Boise State University 1375 W University Dr Boise, Idaho 83706

This presentation is an overview of IEEE Standard 1547. We will discuss interconnection and interoperability of distributed energy resources and the benefits they can provide to distribution and transmission systems. Speaker(s): Eric Bakie, Jim_Burdick & Andres_Valdepena_Delgado Location: Room: Main Auditorium Bldg: Idaho Power Headquarters 1221 W Idaho St Boise, Idaho 83713

This two-part seminar provides an overview of AC and DC Microgrid architectures, components, and hierarchies. The challenges of maintaining reliable and optimal operation of an autonomous local power system are also introduced. This is followed by a closer look at the enabling technologies by focusing on the major modules of a representative DC Microgrid. These include distributed energy resources and their performance curves, power electronic converters, and the role of a SCADA system, in addition to practical aspects of their design. Speaker(s): Ahmed Oteafy, Location: Room: 114 Bldg: MEC Boise State University 1020 South Manitou Avenue Boise, Idaho 83706

Free IEEE Boise Section fall picnic catered by Boise student branches. Family and friends are welcome. Location: Bldg: Shelter site KA Municipal Park 500 S Walnut St Boise, Idaho 83712

Sustainable Energy – Meet alumni from the Mechanical Engineering program at Boise State. These three engineers work in the sustainable/renewable energy industry. Host: Yvette Barrios Panel: Todd Haynes, Lars Dorr, Melissa Elkinton Join Zoom Meeting https://boisestate.zoom.us/j/96479506560?pwd=K0ZyMW12OE1oc0VhWE95MEszQktwdz09 Hosted by Boise State Alumni and Friends, Boise State University and Boise State College of Engineering  

Join us as IEEE-USA Director of Government Relations Russ Harrison discusses what Congress is doing for, and to our profession during the COVID-19 crisis. #IEEEUSAhelp #COVID19 Facebook livestream: https://bit.ly/wa-update-7-10-fb YouTube livestream: https://bit.ly/wa-update-7-10-yt

The IEEE-Boise Computer Society chapter will be hosting a virtual talk by Dr. Yidong Xia of the Energy and Environment Science & Technology Directorate, Idaho National Laboratory, at noon on December 10, 2020. Please see https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/249195 for more details.

The IEEE-Boise Computer Society chapter and IEEE-Boise Power and Energy Society chapter will be hosting a virtual talk by Eric Whiting, who will share insights into the compute, electrical, and mechanical systems that came together in support of the installation of the Sawtooth supercomputer at INL. Sawtooth ranked #37 in the November 2019 TOP500 list of supercomputers. The Collaborative Computing Center facility was specifically designed to support systems such as this.   Discussion will focus on the unique characteristics of both the facility and the system. The talk will be held at noon on Dec. 15th, 2020. Please see https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/251594 for more details.

This talk offers an introduction for students and practitioners to the application of the scientific method to cybersecurity tools and systems. Speaker: Josiah Dykstra, Technical Fellow from NSA’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center and ACM Distinguished Lecturer Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2021, Noon MT (US Mountain) Details and registration: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/266994