Physics IS Fun: Say Students Who Compete at Yale's Physics Olympics

Four students, in fact, traveled recently to Yale University to represent Millbrook in the 15th Annual Physics Olympics, and for them it was a day of competition and creativity that played right into their love of science and math.
Gavin Rice, Kai Yu, Josh Webb, and Ashlyn Kang are studying Advanced Physics this year with Mr. Somerset Waters. Given the opportunity to join together as a 4-person team in a day-long competition at Yale University, they jumped at the invitation. A sixth former at Millbrook, Gavin Rice loves "science and math because of how very concrete they are. You can see the results, and they both really tie the physical world together for me."

Fifty teams, about 200 students, from all across New England came together on the university grounds in late October for this year's event. Each team competed in five 35-minute events, which ranged from building to measuring to creating items from scratch. The Ferme quiz was challenging, as students were asked to calculate measurements without having specific data to use as a starting point. For example, each team had to calculate the radius of a sphere of soda representing all the soda that an average American drinks in a single year, an exercise that involved not only knowledge of math and physics but also good estimation skills. In the building event students used 30 wooden jenga-like blocks and 20 pennies to create a lever—the winning team's lever extended the farthest out over the table on which it was built. Another event tested each group's creativity as they were provided cardboard, paper clips, hot glue, and a motor and given 25 minutes to build a vehicle to travel as far as possible on a track in 5 seconds. Millbrook's team actually built an airplane, whose propeller was turned by the aforementioned motor!

In the afternoon Yale professors and graduate students entertained the crowd with their own presentations. In one, a vacuum was set up to propel a ping pong ball with enough force to actually penetrate two tin cans. In other demonstrations, smoke rings reverberated off each other and a small metal super conductor was made to levetate in liquid nitrogen. For students like Gavin, Kai, Josh, and Ashlyn, it was "a lot of fun being around that many kids who were genuinely excited about doing these things, getting challenged, with no rules, just pure creativity."  "How often do you get to do that?" asked Gavin. 

Perhaps someday Gavin will be on the other end, creating those wickedly cool demonstrations. Perhaps, after he finishes his pre-med studies at Vanderbilt, which he is hopeful will come to fruition a little over four years from now.
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