Imperial College Success for Y12 Physicists
29th June 22
The Year 12 Physics students, Sammy, Bogues, Luka and Rowan, spent four days at Imperial College London taking part in a competition on Simple Harmonic Motion. The contest included performing practical laboratory work and then coding a simulation in Python to compare and calculate based on their measurements.
After the practical work the students then had to present their findings to a lecture theatre full of lecturers, post graduate students and their peers.
The King Alfred School team, or Team Null as they had chosen to call themselves, focused on giving a talk about the methodology and errors in determining the decay coefficient of a pendulum using Python from experimental data and ended up finishing 2nd out of the 14 school teams present.
This was just reward for the hard work and dedication over the course of the competition which saw them overcome not only university level physics problems and logistical issues caused by tube strikes.
Here they are with their winning ‘trophies’ (eco friendly travel mugs!)
What they thought about the experience:”Imperial College was a great experience to challenge myself in a very intellectual environment.” – Bogues
“It was great to put the skills we’ve learnt over the year into action in a competition environment.” – Rowan
“Experiencing the atmosphere and environment of a university was fantastic, especially the lunch!” – Luka
“It felt great to be a uni student for a week and to work in a laboratory” -Sammy
