Sara Does Science

Day one of the American Physical Society March Meeting. I made sure to get to the exhibitors early, as that’s the prime opportunity to score free stuff before booths run our or get too crowded. I’ve definitely refined my “grabbing free swag” style since I went to my first March Meeting. Then, I was over-eager to take anything. But that learn to lugging a heavy bag full of stuff I would eventually throw out. Now I know not to take most of the free magazines/journals and that most free pens suck. I go straight to toys, edibles, gadgets, and anything that obnoxiously lights up.

So far I’ve scored:

• A full sized Hershey bar and bag of Peanut M&Ms. This is awesome because most vendors only put our bowls of bite sized candy.
• A light up lanyard with blinking lights. I love kitch and shiny/lit up things, so this is perfect. I’m wearing it now.
• Some physics pins
• A nice pen
• Chopsticks from the Physical Society of Japan
• A tape measure
• A 4GB flash drive
• A DVD of PBS’s “Nova: Fabric of the Cosmos” series
• Magnet noise makers: I make sure to get a pair of these every year.
• Portable band-aid holder with band-aids
• A light up yo-yo

Overall, it’s a pretty good haul, because I didn’t really try that hard to hit up every booth. Except one of the pins is kind of sexist.