Students from the Erlanger SchülerForschungsZentrums travel to Bad Honnef!
After an exciting regional competition hosted by the Erlanger SchülerForschungsZentrum (Erlangen Student Research Center) and the regional GYPT base, three students from Erlangen and Nuremberg have qualified to take part in the national competition in Bad Honnef.
At the annual nationwide physics competition German Young Physicists’ Tournament (www.gypt.org), pupils work on open physics questions. In the run-up to the competition, they carry out experiments and develop theories, which are then presented as a lecture at the competition and have to be defended against criticism from other participants. The best participants from the regional competitions then compete against each other in the national competition.
This year, Mark Heimlich (14) from Willstätter Gymnasium in Nuremberg, Lars Schmidt (16) from Marie-Therese Gymnasium in Erlangen and Alan Stranjak (16) from Emil-von-Behring-Gymnasium in Spardorf will be going to the national competition for GYPT Zentrum Erlangen.
Alan took part in the regional competition for the third time and this year investigated how a drop of water on a pane of glass can serve as a microscope. Lars analyzed a home-made Grätzel cell, a solar cell made with plant dye. Mark looked at the “Ping Pong Rocket”. This involves dropping a table tennis ball into a container of water. After hitting the ground, the ball is catapulted many meters into the air.
After the interesting presentations and exciting discussions, guest juror Michelle Chong from MIT gave a lecture on how quantum computers can be realized with cold atoms. Finally, participants and jurors visited the “panOPTICUM” together – an exhibition on modern optics, photonics and lasers at FAU.
We would like to thank everyone involved for an enjoyable competition and wish our team every success at the national competition in Bad Honnef!
Carina Kanitz, Kosmas Dandl and Dr. Angela Fösel
(Organizing team of the GYPT regional competition at the GYPT Center ESFZ)
