Physics+Olympics

=The Physics Olympics at Dallastown =

John Workinger---Jeff Emenhiser---Cameron Tome---Zane Deller---Wayne Trible
Here are some words of advice for the next year participants in the Physics Olympics. First of all don't take it lightly!! When Mr. Smith first gives you the choice to take part in the Olympics start your projects right away. That is start the construction/ reasearching the topics that are going to be discussed in the Olympics. The three construction activites this year were the egg slug, the hover craft, and the vortex cannon. Each of these three things takes a lot of time in preparation and careful construction. Also it would be in your best interest at least review the material covered in the Olympics. Some of the topics discussed we covered in honors physics so you have to go back and look over the material to know it completely. So overall don't just expect to do all the construction the weekend before, because it takes longer planning and construction time to do well in the Olympics. The next topic to discuss is what to expect at the Olympics. Just to let you know these people don't fool around when it comes to the running of their Physics Olympics!! To be on top of things try to get to Dallastown right after school so that you can go over your schedule and the classrooms that the Olympics will be held in. Also every team there might not be as smart as you but they are there to win, so don't make fun of anything like the opening ceremony or the other people in it. Not saying that we did, but it would be in the best interest that you don't either. Also make sure you have your team has calculators and paper!!! You can ask for these things but it will eat your time in the event. Also 5 mins might seem like a long time to complete each task, but in reality you need every minuet you can get so as I said before be prepared with the material you need for the event before you enter the classroom. The events that were most difficult for us were the laser shoot, palm pipe opus, and fermi questions. The laser was challenging because we had not yet talked about light, so one thing that you can do is ask Mr. Smith to go over things such as index of refraction, and lasers before you go to the Olympics. As for the palm pipes make sure you know what kind of harmonics you are dealing open or closed pipe. That was important because the equations change between the two. And lastly the fermi questions. Basically you need questions in the form of scientific notation by the power of ten such as 10^4 or 10^8. My word of advice for that is not TAKE AN EDUCATED GUESS AND MOVE ON!!!!! You have 5 minuets to complete the test so don't hover on a question you don't have time. Another word of advice for the air cannon make it big and powerful. Not to give too many secrets away i would advise that a trashcan should be used in the construction of the cannon, along with a an elastic garbage bag. As for the egg slug anything goes. Use something round but not too big so that you can still hit and give distance but when it hits the ground it can roll. And last if you want to win you must place in the movie and the song be creative very creative. The winning movie was very funny. Overall it you want to participate in the Olympics start early and take it seriouly and you will win because there is nobody smarter than a Red Lion Area Senior High School AP physic student.

The Events -Hole in my bucket -Pole Position -Aquarium Shoot -Palm Pipe Opus -Sinking Ship -Fermi Questions -Slow bike Race -Egg Slug -Hovercraft -The Vortex Cannon

- This is the tank full of water used in the light refraction event. The team had the concept of what to do, but a slight measurement error set us back a bit.





- In this event, we were given two bar magnets. The maze was set up on the floor with regular electrical tape. The goal was to get the magnet on the floor through the maze as fast as possible by using another bar magnet in your hand. This event used the poles of the magnets to move. We knew that like poles repel and unlike poles attract. Therefore, using that concept, Jeff, shown in the picture, lined the north pole of the magnet in his hand with the north poe of the magnet on the ground. Using this method he inched the magnet through the maze and we achieved a time of around 13 seconds or so.

- This is a picture of the copy of the test we had to take. All answers to the questions needed to be expressed in scientific notation. It was rather fun and had different questions that were never really seen before. It had questions ranging from baseball to dairy cows.