Advertising senior Monica Fineis takes a model of an isotope out of the model Cyclotron at a demonstration to bring awareness to the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, at the rock on Farm Lane.
—After leaving their WRA class Thursday afternoon, freshmen Nick Lebel and Eric Sneller decided to smash nuclei and create some rare isotopes.
They’re not physics students, but the two were at the rock on Farm Lane participating in the FRIB Frenzy rally, an event intended to spark interest in the student body for the half-billion-dollar Facility for Rare Isotope Beams — a project that would update MSU’s Cyclotron and bring $1 billion in economic stimulus to Michigan.
“It’s really exciting to have something like that come here,” said Sneller, an animal science freshman. “It’s nice to have student interaction around campus.”
Sparty stood in the middle of Farm Lane holding a sign read ing “Honk 4 FRIB” and students conducted demonstrations showing how the FRIB will smash nuclei and create new and rare isotopes for MSU scientists to study.
Zachary Constan, the outreach coordinator at the Cyclotron, said the event was a way for students to learn about the importance of the project and what it will do.
“My challenge was to come up with a way to explain nuclear science to people who aren’t necessarily nuclear scientists,” he said.
Using piping and magnetic marbles as “nuclei,” student passers-by were able to “be FRIB” by smashing groups of marbles together creating, “new isotopes.”
“We study the most exotic forms of isotopes on earth,” Constan said. “So people can get excited about that because it’s so different. And it’s very hands-on so it’s got that going for it.”
Monica Fineis, an advertising senior and creator of the FRIB student advisory committee, said the event showed how interested students are in the project.
“We’ve had people stopping by all day, especially for the nuclei smashing demonstrations and I think a lot of people have learned a lot and taken a lot from this,” she said.
While MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon spent the first part of the week in Washington, D.C., lobbying for FRIB, Fineis said the FRIB Frenzy was another important aspect of the process of bringing the project to East Lansing.
“This shows how committed we are as a community,” she said, “that everyone from the students up to the senior level administration care and support this project.”
Students also were able to win FRIB T-shirts by yelling “Bring FRIB to our crib.”
Microbiology senior Jeffrey Mann won a T-shirt and said the event showed how much students at MSU care about academics.
“We’ve got a sort of party-school attitude,” he said. “Having a lot of people that care about something this big in research is amazing.”
Caroline Dunham, an eighth-grader at MacDonald Middle School in East Lansing, skipped part of the school day to come to the rally.
“I’m very excited about FRIB because I’ve been to the Cyclotron before and it’s pretty awesome,” she said. “It’s cutting-edge and cutting-edge things don’t happen near my house super often.”
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