Schools
Towson High School Wins 2019 Physics Olympics
Students from Towson put their knowledge to the test and beat out their peers in both the Physics Olympics and Chemathon.
From BCPS: More than 200 Baltimore County Public Schools students from 17 high schools participated in the concurrent 31st annual Physics Olympics and 6th annual Chemathon. Teams from Towson High placed first in both competitions.
The events, held on Feb. 23 at Dulaney High School, allowed students to showcase their science and mathematics skills by solving STEM challenges. The winning teams are:
Physics Olympics
Find out what's happening in Towsonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
1st place – Towson High, Team 3
2nd place – Pikesville High, Team 1
Find out what's happening in Towsonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
3rd place – Towson High, Team 2
Chemathon
1st place – Towson High, Team 2
2nd place – Pikesville High
3rd place – Hereford High, Team 1
The challenges change each year and are not announced in advance. This year’s challenges were:
Physics Olympics
· Suspend: Apply knowledge of balanced forces to hang game pieces and masses on a support structure in the shortest time possible.
· Physics Black Hole: Use a launcher to project a straw into one of four holes in a board 1.5 to 3.0 meters away.
· Collapsing Jenga Tower: Make a Jenga tower land in a collapse zone as far away from the base of the tower as possible.
· Candy Land Bridges: Build the longest possible bridge using only the sweets provided.
· Mousetrap: Design a device to protect an egg from a fall to the floor.
· Physics Quiz Bowl: Correctly solve physics problems related to games and sports; maximize score by wagering confidently on correctly solved problems.
Chemathon
· Ping Pong: Create a polymer ball from white glue and borax solution that has the maximum bounce height.
· Battleship: Apply knowledge of density to find the percent copper in brass hardware.
· Guess Who?: Apply knowledge of chemical reactions to determine the identity of eight mystery aqueous solutions.
· Clue: Identify 26 different elements from a set of clues, for example, “The metalloid with the highest number of electrons in its valence p-sublevel.”
The theme for the 2019 events was "Science is the Name of the Game.” Ankit Adhikari, a Towson High student, designed this year’s t-shirt graphics.
