By Becca Wise

When you take some of the smartest students at Phoenixville High School and give them some of the hardest problems to solve and tasks to achieve, what happens? They rise to the challenge, overcome it, and achieve success. The members of Phoenixville’s Physics Olympics team recently competed in a competition. They impressively finished 3rd in a mystery lab which dealt with DC circuits and RC circuits. They also received 4th place in Physics Pictionary, which can be assumed to be much more complicated and in depth than drawing a dog with your eyes closed. Other events included a mousetrap-jumping event and a Popsicle stick catapult.

So what exactly does being involved in Physics Olympics entail? The group is students working with one another to solve problems, mostly through trial and error attempts. President Cj Vaile explains it as, “taking the concepts learned in class and applying them to the different events that take place at the competitions”. The team practices Wednesday’s before school and Friday’s after school in Mr. Jennings room for a few hours. The night before a competition, practice tends to last longer than normal, sometimes until about 6 at night. This allows the team to be fully prepared come time for the competition. Competitions take place on Saturday mornings from 8-12pm. The results from the last competition put the team in fifth place and they have one competition left. This is a great accomplishment considering that Phoenixville is one of the smallest groups at every competition.

Anyone who takes physics is more than welcome to be a part of the team. Everyone can be an asset to the group in one way or another. If interested, Cj says that “[he’d] strongly encourage anyone thinking about it to come be involved”. Congratulation goes out to the whole Physics Olympics team for their success in the season so far and good luck in your final competition!