Heidi VanLith
Special to The Chief
When asked to create an edible musical instrument that could play "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" in the key of G, with a C note at precisely 256 hertz, the Howe Sound Secondary physics students rose to the challenge earning them sixth place overall at the 28th Annual UBC Physics Olympics last week.
HSSS took home the gold medal for their culinary and musical skills by constructing candy flutes that met the standards of the Iron Chef challenge, beating out 67 other high schools from across the province.
"We knew that cr猫me brul茅e had a hard sugar coating on top and decided to build our instruments out of sugar," explained physics teacher Alex Katramadakis, adding that the class consulted Chef Alain Gorgien of the Howe Sound Brewery to get specific cooking instructions.
After cooking the sugar to 355F or to "molten sugar" as Katramadakis called it, the students carefully blew the sugar like glass and carefully drilled the holes to exact specifications.
"The flutes were very delicate and if you dropped them they'd shatter into a million pieces," said Katramadakis. "One of our students, Jo Suh, who's never played a musical instrument in his life, picked up the flute and began playing it. It was unbelievable."
Impressed by Suh's performance, the Judges asked the young prodigy for an encore.
The 10-student team placed 14th in the cart challenge where they were asked to prefabricate, in their classroom, a cart propelled by the falling of a one kilogram mass.
"Not only did the cart have to travel three metres, but it also had to shoot a dart sideways at a bulls-eye using the energy from elastic bands," said Katramadakis, enthusiastic about the wackiness of the challenges. "Like I always say, the devil's in the details."
The student contenders worked hard for three weeks leading up to the event to prepare two pre-built assignments. The four on-site challenges were announced at the competition and included an electrical maze and intuitive physics.
"Whoever says that these kids have nothing to do is crazy," said Katramadakis. "They're all on teams and one student was doing the Physics Olympics on Saturday and the next day was the lead in Beauty and the Beast. They're super motivated, involved kids and they're the best team I've ever had as far as teamwork goes."
The full-day event at UBC's Hebb Theatre played host to more than 600 people, both participants and spectators. HSSS principal Nancy Campbell was amongst the crowd rooting for the 樱桃视频team.
"It's amazing to see how much the community really gets behind this," said Katramadakis, adding that Triton Steel donated steel for their projects and that their candy flutes wouldn't have been a success without the expertise of Georgian. "The Shop Builder at school, Peter Staton, also played an important role on our team."
HSSS took home a large plaque commemorating its sixth place win along with memories of silly physics experiments. These are the kinds of things that Katramadakis said students remember.
