STEMULATING ADVENTURES • EPISODE 1

Pi Makes the Pie Perfect

Step into the Circle Kitchen and discover what happens when mathematics, baking, creativity, and engineering come together.

What Do Math and Pie Have in Common? 🥧π

Wesleigh, Waylen, and Waverly are headed into the kitchen, where they discover that making something delicious can also mean doing some serious math!

In Pi Makes the Pie Perfect, our adventurers explore one of mathematics' most famous numbers: pi.

π

A Number That Keeps Going

Pi begins with 3.14159... but its decimal digits don't stop there. They keep going and going, giving mathematicians a fascinating number to explore.

π = 3.14159265358979323846...

Pi helps us understand circles. It connects a circle's circumference—the distance around it—to its diameter—the distance straight across it.

Once You Start Looking, Circles Are Everywhere. ⭕

🍪COOKIES
🍕PIZZA
🛞WHEELS
🕐CLOCKS
🍽️PLATES
🥧PIE

📐 The Math Inside a Circle

Measure straight across a circle to find its diameter. Measure around the outside to find its circumference. Pi helps connect those two measurements.

⭕ CIRCLE📏 DIAMETERπ = CIRCUMFERENCE ÷ DIAMETER

👩🏾‍🍳 Welcome to the Circle Kitchen!

Baking is full of STEM. A kitchen gives us a place to measure, compare, calculate, experiment, and create.

🥄MEASURE
½FRACTIONS
🌡️TEMPERATURE
⭕GEOMETRY

⚙️ Can You Engineer the Perfect Shape?

What happens when you want to make a perfectly shaped cookie, but you don't have the cutter you need?

That's an engineering challenge. Think about the shape, choose materials, design a solution, build it, test it, and improve it.

This Pi Day adventure isn't only about calculating. It's about using mathematics to create something.

💡 IMAGINE📐 DESIGN🛠 BUILD🧪 TEST✨ IMPROVE
π PI⭕ CIRCLES📐 GEOMETRY📏 MEASUREMENT👩🏾‍🍳 BAKING⚙️ ENGINEERING DESIGN
THE BIG IDEA

Math Isn't Just Something You Solve.
It's Something You Can Use.

Use math to measure a circle, design a cookie cutter, follow a recipe, build something new, or prepare for a future as a mathematician, engineer, baker, chef, architect, scientist, designer—or something nobody has invented yet.

BUT AROUND HERE...The Episode Is Only the Beginning.

After watching Pi Makes the Pie Perfect, keep exploring.

Sing along with the STEMBop, go Beyond the Episode on a real-world adventure, listen to the podcast, discover our recommended book, and then put your own math and engineering skills to work with a hands-on STEM challenge.

One Episode. Six Ways to Keep the Adventure Going.

There's more Pi Day fun waiting beyond the episode.

🎬 WATCH🎵 SING🛠 BUILD🎙 LISTEN📚 READ🗺 EXPLORE

Choose your next adventure below. Find the circles. Follow the numbers. Build something new. And discover why π really does make the pie perfect. 🥧π

YOU'VE EXPLORED. NOW CREATE!

Now It's Your Turn! 🥧 + π

🎬 WATCHED ✓ 🎵 SANG ✓ 🗺️ EXPLORED ✓ 🎙️ LISTENED ✓ 📚 READ ✓

You've watched Pi Makes the Pie Perfect, sung along to the STEMBop, gone Beyond the Episode on our real-world tour, listened to the podcast, and even explored the recommended book. That's a whole lot of Pi—but your adventure isn't finished yet!

Now it's time to go from WATCHING STEM to DOING STEM.

Join Dr. G and Dr. Nancy as they take on the Build Your Own Pi Day Cookie Cutter Challenge. Then gather your materials, put your creativity to work, and give the challenge a try yourself.

You'll measure circles, explore circumference and diameter, discover why C ÷ D ≈ 3.14 = π, and use engineering and problem-solving to turn your own design into something you can actually build.

And who knows where a little curiosity about π might lead? You could become a mathematician, engineer, architect, computer scientist, designer, scientist—or even a baker or chef who uses math every day to measure, scale recipes, create shapes, and make something delicious.

The next great idea could be yours.
Don't just watch the adventure—build one!

🛠 BUILD YOUR OWN PI DAY COOKIE CUTTER →
Made Possible By. Infinite Sums episodes are supported by the Simons Foundation as part of its Infinite Sums initiative. Visit the Simons Foundation