EGHS Physics Team Places 3th In Yale Competition

The four-member physics team from East Greenwich High School captured third place in the annual Yale Physics Olympics competition at Yale University. Fifty teams competed.

Team members were Neil Fachon, Chris Luo, Ali Marcus and Michelle Xiong. Science teachers Frank Lenox and Celia Schnacky helped prepare and accompanied the team.

“They worked amazingly well as a team,” said Schnacky. “Although they did not place in the top three in any of the five events, they did very well overall – third out of the 50 in their combined scores!”

“Very impressive,” said Lenox.

The team had to compete in five different events, she said, including having to measure the bounce of a golf ball and then predicting where it would land if dropped onto a ramp, and competing in a relay in which each team member had to walk at a certain speed for a certain distance and the team had to finish by a certain time. (You can read about the competition on the Yale Physics Olympics site here.)

The idea behind the competition is to show that “physics is fun!” To that end, there was a costume contest and the EGHS team won, dressing as Schrodinger's Cat – complete with ears, tails and whiskers – based on a famous physics thought experiment.

On the way home, Schnacky said, the they all stopped for dinner at Mystic Pizza, “still dressed as cats.”