The BPhO is a national competition run for GCSE and A-level students. This year’s competition required the students to model ‘Seiches’, a type of wave found in lakes. The project was undertaken fully at home and we saw 29 students from Years 10, 11 and Lower Sixth entering – the largest participation ever!
‘Undaunted by the challenge ahead of us, we dove headfirst into our British Physics Olympiad project investigating oscillations in water. We were slightly nervous, considering all the plentiful disasters we had identified on our risk assessment. Luckily, there were no hiccoughs as we used different volumes of water in a baking tray to measure the speeds of waves that we created by tilting the tin. Two weeks and a few graphs later, we realised that our results were slightly different from what we had previously expected. We decided to repeat the experiment three more times over a Teams call and averaged our results to find a more accurate pattern. Over the course of the final weeks, we finished writing up our results, co-ordinating our weekends to allow us to work together and fill in any gaps. Our BPhO has been a fun and informative experience, allowing us to work together to overcome challenges as well as learning lots of useful skills.’
Amber 11J, Leo 11J and Annabel 11K
