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You are here: Home / Education / Physics Olympics is at UNI today

Physics Olympics is at UNI today

April 3, 2007 By admin

Students who are considered some of Iowa’s top future scientists will be competing in the regional finals of the Physics Olympics today at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls. Larry Escalada, event coordinator and a physics professor at the University of Northern Iowa, says teams of more than 200 high school students will be taking part in a host of events, like building a small car that only runs on the power of a mousetrap spring.

Escalada says "They have to use the mousetrap as the primary mechanism in order for the car to be able to move. There’s a specific target distance they have to achieve. The closer they get to that particular target, the better chance they have at scoring." Another event involves a self-propelled catapult that has to reach a certain destination, then launch a ping pong ball. Escalada says a third event is called the student-powered water heater.

Escalada says the students are given a quantity of water which has to be placed in a container they construct using available materials, and then they have to raise the water’s temperature as high as they can get it — using only the power of their bodies. He says another challenging event is called the optical slalom, as students have to learn how to bend a laser beam.

Escalada says students are given a fixed pen laser and five mirrors that have to be used to bounce the beam of light around obstacles to reach a target within ten minutes. Students who do well in the regional finals will advance to the state finals at Drake University in Des Moines on April 25th. 

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Filed Under: Education Tagged With: University of Northern Iowa

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