Phoenixville Physics Team Returns From Thailand Competition

The Phoenixville Physics Team has returned from an international championship overseas, and school officials are excited about the success and brilliance of the local science whizzes, per a report in the Daily Local News.

The team raised $33,000 to travel to Korat, Thailand for the week-long International Young Physicists Tournament earlier this month.

“It’s just so great to be able to provide students with so many different opportunities,” Superintendent Alan Fegley told the Daily Local. “One of the joys of the Phoenixville Area School District is that the board really works with the community and the community works with the board to try to provide good solid educational extracurricular opportunities for all our students … It’s just a great place to be in giving everyone opportunities to grow.”

The team finished at about the middle of the pack, according to the official results, an outcome which Fegley told the Daily Local was a “wonderful location.”

The tournament’s website describes the competition in this way:

The IYPT, sometimes also referred to as “Physics World Cup”, is a team-oriented scientific competition among teams of secondary school students. The participants present their solutions to scientific problems they have prepared over several months and then discuss their solutions with other teams.

The tournament in Nakhonratchasima began on June 27 and stretched until July 4.

The students from Phoenixville are the first team to represent the United States in the tournament since 2007, according to the report.

Thirty-two other teams from around the country took part in the event.