PRINCETON: PRINCETON: Geek Freak Weekend serves up some pi(e)

By Victoria Hurley-Schubert,Staff Writer
   Princeton Plasma Physicists were rock stars with groupies this weekend as kids learned about air pressure, static electricity and plasma at Geek Freak Weekend festivities celebrating math and science.
   The weekend-long celebration was in honor of Pi Day, which was officially yesterday, and Albert Einstein’s birthday. Prof. Einstein was a Princeton resident for more than 20 years as he studied at the Institute for Advanced Studies.
   ”Science is so interesting and helps us unlock views we’ve never seen before,” said 10-year-old Andre Dumitriu of Princeton Township, who hopes to be an astronomer. “Every night I look at the stars and wonder.”
   Capturing and explaining this wonder is what motivates the Princeton Plasma Physics employees who were conducting the experiments.
   ”It’s important to encourage interest in science and teach future generations about science,” said Leland Ellison, a graduate student at Princeton University who was running a vacuum station that demonstrated how air pressure impacts objects. “I get enjoyment out of coming up with new ways to explain science to excited children.”
   For a couple of real-life science geeks who work with plasma, the main attraction was Greg Olsen. Mr. Olsen was the third private citizen in space and he spoke about the clean energy and the possible privatization of NASA.
   ”These guys are great at making outreach for science,” said Derek Shannon of South Bound Brook who works at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics. “It would be great to get this kind of reaction or even half of this reaction for science.”
   ”It’s great to see how they convey the information to people,” added Rezuan Razani, also of South Bound Brook and works at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics. “It’s really tactile and visual.”
   Experiment stations were set up in the community room of the Princeton Library that allowed kids to shock their siblings with a static electric charge from a Van de Graff generator, displayed how plasma conducted electricity and how vacuum pressure affected marshmallows (it puffed them up then compressed them).
   ”We missed Pi Day last year, so we’re really excited to be here,” said Karen Nathan, a Princeton Borough resident. “This is a fabulous combination of education and family fun. My 6-year-old is excited for the root beer floats (served at Saturday’s No Sock Sock Hop). If that’s what get her in the door, that’s great.”
   Activities were spread throughout the weekend.
   Thomas Morris, a student at John Witherspoon Middle School, was the champion at M-Athlete math competition Sunday afternoon.
   There were pie eating, pie throwing and pie judging contests on Sunday.
   A chocolate chestnut pie by Sophie Meunier, a research scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, took top honors in the homemakers pie recipe contest. Her pie was baked by the chefs at Eno Terra. In the professional category, Princeton newcomer D’Angelo’s Market won with its raspberry and white chocolate mousse pie.
   (For full disclosure, this reporter was a judge in the pie recipe contest for JeseyBites.com.)
   Pi recitation winners are: for the second year in a row Gareth Conway of Princeton with 315 digits in the 7 to 13 year-old category; Jay Westreich of Hillsborough in the 14 to 18 year-old category with 96 digits and Brian Stephens of Yardley, Pa., in the 19 years old and above with 1,371 digits.
   Einstein Look-Alike contest winners are: Ava Fleming, 5, in the 12 and under category and second year champion Joe Lepis in the adult category.
   The champion pie eaters were: Brett Mezro in the 4- to 8-year-old category; Disha Hegde in the 9- to 13-year-old category; Ravi Manchi in the adult category and George Teeple in the employees category.