In the middle of January, the final round of the Physics Team Olympiad for school students from grades 8 to 12 organized by Riga 1st State Gymnasium took place. On February 4, the best teams were invited to the Awards ceremony. The ISSP UL and CAMART2 have been among the event’s supporters since its beginning, and this year was no different.
The organizers of the Olympiad are pleased that the event is getting bigger every year. They started with three schools and 19 teams in the first year and went up to 125 teams this time. This was the 4th year the event took place. Among the first-round participants were students from all parts of Latvia - more than 450 students. Forty teams qualified for the final round of the Olympiad – the teams that showed the best results in each age group during the first round. In the finals, teams had to solve challenging tasks, do laboratory work, and do an experiment. Twenty teams were invited to the Awards ceremony.
The idea for the Olympiad came four years ago, inspired by the Mathematics Teams Olympiad. The event organizers are physics enthusiasts - young people who have just finished school or are still in the last grade of secondary education. The organizers explained that they liked the format of the Open Group Olympiad, and there had never been anything of the kind in the field of physics in Latvia. The experience students get at the Olympiad helps inspire and promote the popularity of physics among young people in Latvia.
School youth teams have several opportunities to test their knowledge of physics individually, for example, at the State Physics Olympiad or the Open Physics Olympiad. This Olympiad aims to popularize physics among students, develop skills to work in a team, and prepare students for national and international Olympiads in physics, introducing them to the ideas, techniques, and tasks that may appear in such Olympiads.
This year, the general sponsor of the event was one of the Latvian internet service providers, tet.lv. Other sponsors included members of LETERA (Latvian Electrical Engineering and Electronics Industry Association).
More information about the Olympiad is available in Latvian from here.
