<b>A 1st Place Win at Yale Physics Olympics</b>
Millbrook's Team Positron (positive electron) attended the Yale Physics
Olympics for the third year in a row to compete against 196 other
students on 49 other school teams and earn a first place prize in one
of six events. Four Millbrook students (Dave Corvi '09, Jae Hwa Lee
'09, Jung Hwang '09, and James Matson '10), advanced physics teacher
Somerset Waters, and his wife Wieska Waters traveled to the Sloan
Physics Lab on Yale University's campus in New Haven, CT on Saturday,
October 18th.
Jae Hwa, James, and Dave earned the privilege of attending the physics competition by building together the strongest bridge in their advanced physics class using only popsicle sticks and hot glue. A strong science student, Jung was invited to join them.
All teams spent the day competing in six events. Team Positron won first place in the "It's a Gas" event in which they had to determine the density of a particular gas given to them. Calculating the volume of the balloon which was filled with this gas and then using a scale to measure its mass, the team was able to come up with the closest density measurement in the quickest amount of time.
Other events in which they competed included:
Students look forward to all of the hands-on lab work that they will be doing with Mr. Waters this year; some of these projects include: shooting projectiles to study their motion, sliding carts on air tracks to study Newton's laws, shooting pellets into a clay bob on a pendulum to student energy and momentum, calculating the frequency of a guitar string from the strings' mass and length, and shining a laser through a thin slit to study refraction.
Back
Jae Hwa, James, and Dave earned the privilege of attending the physics competition by building together the strongest bridge in their advanced physics class using only popsicle sticks and hot glue. A strong science student, Jung was invited to join them.
All teams spent the day competing in six events. Team Positron won first place in the "It's a Gas" event in which they had to determine the density of a particular gas given to them. Calculating the volume of the balloon which was filled with this gas and then using a scale to measure its mass, the team was able to come up with the closest density measurement in the quickest amount of time.
Other events in which they competed included:
- Pirate's Vision - making a telescope out of two lenses, adjusting the distance between them to find the highest magnifying power
- May the Force Be With You - making a magnet using nails, copper wire, and batteries. The strongest magnet used the the best combination of nails and wire.
- Synchronicity - gathering the most amount of light as it passed through three moving objects, timing the frequency and period of the objects' motion for maximum results.
- Fermi Quiz - estimating the answers to 10 unusual physics questions
- Lost Your Marbles
Students look forward to all of the hands-on lab work that they will be doing with Mr. Waters this year; some of these projects include: shooting projectiles to study their motion, sliding carts on air tracks to study Newton's laws, shooting pellets into a clay bob on a pendulum to student energy and momentum, calculating the frequency of a guitar string from the strings' mass and length, and shining a laser through a thin slit to study refraction.
