UCI’s Brave New World Is Peopled With Nerds

The nerd. Everybody knows one, nobody wants to date one.

Although definitions vary wildly, and can often be quite graphic, Webster’s tamely pegs the nerd as “contemptibly dull.” But that description will hardly suffice for this colorful character, as became apparent during a Nerd Contest held Wednesday as part of UC Irvine’s Engineering Week.

Engineering students, you see, know all about nerds. They don’t mind admitting they spend a lot of time with them.

Don Crain of Huntington Beach, an electrical engineering major, said he knows a few: “Thick glasses, hair greased way back, one of those things you put tons of pens in that keeps you from getting ink all over your shirt pocket, homework and a slide rule sticking out of your pants pocket, your zipper unzipped with your shirt tail hanging out through it, toilet paper on your face ‘cause you cut myself shaving.”

David Park, another electrical engineering major, continued the list: “Flood pants, white collar shirt buttoned up to the neck, scotch tape on the horn-rimmed glasses because they’re broken, dirt under the fingernails, a manual on how to make love to your calculator, that sort of thing. . . .”

Outnerding the nerds to win the hearts of the audience and the contest’s first prize--a calculator, of course--was Flip Florcyk, also known as engineering peer academic adviser Andre Papillon. Papillon described his alter ego with obvious pride.

“Flip majors in biofeedback engineering with a minor in medicine,” Papillon said. “He wants to get to know people by their student ID numbers. He’s got a briefcase full of junk--you know, like a copy of ‘Babysitting for College Support.’ Among his extracurricular activities is a membership in the Society for the Preservation of Black and White Televisions.

“For all nerds, of course, sniffling and slouching are important. And blackened eyes, because, you know, they’ve stayed up all night studying.”

For an unscheduled talent portion of the contest, Florcyk played a selection on the flutophone--through his nose. Third-place winner Daniel Rutz merely picked his. Second place went to Flip’s sister, Fifi, peer adviser Cecilia Penera. With slip showing, a cabbage patch doll’s head peeking out of her backpack, mismatched shoes and mismatched socks, Fifi boasted that she works the night shift at Naugles.

Engineering Week is designed to help students on campuses all over the United States celebrate the lighter side of what is generally considered one of the most difficult college curricula. Nerd judge Frederick Sawyer, assistant dean of the School of Engineering, recalled its origins.

“Years ago it started out in honor of George Washington,” Sawyer said. “He was our first president, but he was also a civil engineer. So it always ties in with his birthday, Feb. 22.”

On the Irvine campus, activities began Tuesday with a paper airplane contest, won by Tommy Choy of Long Beach, whose distinctive bodyless entry dubbed “The Wing” registered a flight duration of just under 11 seconds.

The day continued with Dr. Sawyer Says, a game patterned after Simon Says in which participants follow commands (“raise your left foot”) while solving mathematical equations. Winner of the event was electrical engineering student James Saxon.

An oil derrick contest was sponsored by Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA), a pre-college program for minority students. The derricks are made of toothpicks and glue.

“To see who wins,” said Kay Stone, MESA’s Orange County director, “we break them. It’s not just how much weight the derrick can hold; it’s judged on a weight-to-mass ratio.”

This year marked the first time that first prize in both categories--strength-to-weight and aesthetic beauty--went to one team. Winners were Maria Ramirez and Calvin Small from Santa Ana Valley High School. Perfectly crafted and symmetrical, the derrick, at 19 grams, withstood a whopping 21.44 pounds of weights.

Completing Wednesday’s agenda were a “micromouse” demonstration--a light-sensitive robotic mouse has 10 tries to successfully negotiate a maze--and the beginning of Trivia Bowl.

Today’s schedule includes Frisbee golf and a bridge-building contest. Among Friday’s highlights are the egg drop, a car rally and a “flow intake” contest--beer will likely be the beverage of choice for that chugging event.

“The egg drop is a major crowd draw,” said Ed Carmona, Engineering Week chairman. “The paper airplane, people spend a couple hours on. The egg drop they spend a lot of time on.”

Egg drop participants design a cubic foot package that, when dropped from the roof of the nine-story engineering building, will prevent any of the eggs inside from breaking. Rubber, foam rubber or any packaging material that industry might use are forbidden.

According to peer adviser Papillon--earlier in the week his nerd-about-campus persona was harder to detect--last year’s winner used shaving cream and cotton in a cardboard box containing 16 eggs. “The idea is to save the highest percentage of as many eggs as you can,” he explained, “but it can be one out of one if you want. A couple of years ago, there was one egg that dropped with a parachute and survived.”

This year, Mike Ontko, a junior in mechanical engineering, is receiving research units for his container design. “He’s been doing strain calculations on his eggs,” Papillon noted.

Engineering Week concludes Saturday with a banquet at the Registry Hotel; all activities are limited to UCI students, but not necessarily engineering majors.

UCI has three engineering departments--electrical, mechanical and civil--and will soon open a fourth, biochemical, to include genetic engineering.

According to Sawyer, the public’s image of engineers as nerds is not entirely unfounded.

“Engineering is the toughest curriculum on the campus,” Sawyer said. “It’s rough. Long hours, lab courses--we keep them so busy that it’s hard for them to get into extracurricular activities, to get ‘with it.’ They hardly know what’s going on elsewhere on campus.

“They’re so preoccupied that they do start to look a little different. Maybe the hair gets a little longer. Maybe they pay less attention to their dress--they certainly don’t follow any fashions. Maybe the glasses fall apart so they stick it together with scotch tape. That’s not important to them--they just need the glasses.

“And they’re preoccupied because that’s the only way they’re ever going to get through this place. Even so, most of them take more than four years to do it.”