Lake Shore Participates In Physics Olympics

At the end of November, seven students from Lake Shore attended the Physics Olympics event at the Buffalo State Campus. High School students from all over the county participated in this competition. Our very own students, Yanenowi Logan, Sophie Snyder, and Dayna Sterner came in first place overall and won the competition. 

Zoe Dillenger and Sierra Alioto, who also attended the event, provided some more information. The groups had to perform three tasks. The first task was to build a contraption that would protect an egg from being broken when a textbook was dropped on it from varying heights. During the second task, contestants had to construct an airplane out of foam, with the goal of making it the farthest distance, while also getting it through a hoop. Lastly, students had to calculate the angle a Nerf gun had to be positioned in order to just hit a barrier, without it going too far away. 

When asked about her experiences, Yanenowi said, “I went into it kind of nervous thinking I wouldn’t match up with the other competitive students. Turns out it really just required strong initiative and honestly, common sense.” 

Yanenowi and Zoe also responded about their favorite experiences of the day. Zoe said, “Watching the eggs get crushed” and Yanenowi replied, “My favorite part was definitely winning. That sounds odd but it was really unexpected. Competing with 30+ teams that seemed more prepared and dedicated we didn’t think we stood a chance but continued to do our best and came out on top. As far as experiments my favorite was definitely saving the egg from falling physics textbooks because it seemed so intangible and we actually succeeded.”

If you are interested at all in participating in events such as this one, consider taking physics next year, and if you see the winning team around school don’t forget to congratulate them!