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NOVEMBER 2019 FREE
Young scientist innovates
Five up for election to School Board
Middle school student’s app translates voice into sign language
by bill SanServino
bsanservino@wwpinfo.com
by JuStin Feil Faraz Tamboli is an altruist. His concern for others has fueled a desire to be a biomedical engineer when he grows up, and it led the 12-year-old Plainsboro resident to introduce an innovation that made him a finalist in 3M’s national Young Scientist Challenge. The annual competition, which is sponsored by 3M and Discovery Education, invites students in grades 5-8 to submit a 1-2 minute video describing a unique solution to an everyday problem for the chance to win $25,000 and an exclusive 3M mentorship. “I was thinking of ideas for helping the deaf and aphonic (people) since my father first told me this story about a kid who was aphonic named Mona in my father’s second grade,” Tamboli said. Mona kept trying to play with Tamboli’s dad, but he was unable to understand him. “It was really sad,” he said. “Mona couldn’t play with them, so I thought, ‘Why don’t I fix this story?’ I came up with this idea of making a talk-motion device that translates sign language gestures into voice and voice into sign language See APP, Page 16
West Windsor resident Scott Benerofe takes a break and visits with a donkey during his hike along the Appalachian National Scenic Trail this year.
Thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail Scott Benerofe hiked the entire 2,200mile route over the summer by madeleine maCCar The Appalachian National Scenic Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine, running its full length of nearly 2,200 miles through 14 states—or five pairs of shoes if you’re Scott Benerofe, who hiked the full trail earlier this year. Benerofe, a lifelong Plainsboro resident who recently moved to West Windsor and
graduated from Northeastern University this past December, describes himself as having been “absolutely gripped” by the idea of hiking the Appalachian Trail for the past four years. He read about it, planned for it, mentally and physically prepared for it, undertook comparably shorter hikes and camping excursions with it in mind, and finally hit the trail’s southern terminus in Springer Mountain, Georgia, on March 10. By July 25, he had summited its northern terminus on Mount Katahdin in Maine’s Baxter State Park, joining the ranks of the few hundred people a year
who “thru-hike” the Appalachian Trail, or completely walk it in one season. “I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it,” Benerofe says. “It’s such an inspiring thought to me, the idea of walking so far with everything I need on my back, travelling such a great distance on foot. It was a really motivating thing to think about being able to cover all of that land, to look at the map and know that I walked past every trail marker, I walked the whole entire trail.” Nearly two million people step foot on the trail each year, many of whom are “day hikSee TRAIL, Page 14
Voters in Plainsboro and West Windsor will have the opportunity to cast ballots on Nov. 5 for candidates running for municipal governing bodies and the WW-P Board of Education. In the school board election, two three-year seats are up in West Windsor and one in Plainsboro. In West Windsor, incumbent Carol Herts is being challenged by incumbent Louisa Ho and her running mate Graelynn McKeown. In Plainsboro, current board member Yu “Taylor” Zhong is being challenged by Robin Zovich. Turn to Page 10 for more coverage of the school election. In Plainsboro, incumbent Democrats David Bander and Ed Yates are running unopposed for two three-year terms on Township Committee. In West Windsor, incumbent council president Alison Miller and running mates Yan Mei Wang and Shin-Yi Lin are running as part of the Progressive Vision for West Windsor slate. They are up against Andrea Sue Mandel, Sonia Gawas and Michael Stevens, who are part of the Community Leaders for West Windsor slate. Coverage of the election was printed in the October issue of The News. It is also posted online at wwpinfo.com.
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