In the finals of the Young Physicists’ Tournament, a competition of secondary school students, our country will be represented by the Talnet team. They have won their participation in an even national round which due to the COVID-19 epidemics was held on-line. Also this year, the local rounds were organised with help of the Institute of Physics.
“Unlike in the majority of subject competitions, in the tournament it is not enough to solve the tasks. It is also necessary to present a solution, to analyse it and to defend it,” Hynek Němec, a co-organizer of the competition from our institute, explains the difficulty of the competition and adds: “I am glad that the anti-epidemic measures have not stifled the interest of secondary students. I believe that next year we will be able to organize a live competition with a higher number of competitors and to renew the social dimension of the whole event which is extremely important.”
This year again teams of secondary school students presented original solutions of the tasks and engaged in scientific discussions with their opponents. The Young Physicists’ Tournament is an extremely demanding competition for which teams work long term on the solution of 17 tasks with a very general assignment. One precondition of success in the competition is the collaboration of the members of a team. Although due to the anti-epidemic measures the competition was significantly harder, the competitors managed to overcome this difficulty and present outstanding results of their research.
Talnet team: Martin Švanda, Tomáš Čajan, Maksymilian Iurchenko, Barbora Růžičková and Patrik Štencel
The eight-member jury of the Czech finals highly evaluated the presentation by the winning team consisting of Martin Švanda, Tomáš Čajan, Maksymilian Iurchenko, Barbora Růžičková and Patrik Štencel. The second place was taken by the team from Mendlovo gymnázium in Opava and the third by the team from Gymnázium Christiana Dopplera in Prague.
The finals of the competition are held at a different place every year – it has already been organized by Vienna, Groningen, Singapore and in 1997 the finals took place in Cheb. The Czech winning team consisting of students of the “Na fyziku” programme, organized by the National pedagogical institute of the Czech Republic, will head to the finals of the 31st year to Georgia.
For the support of the competition our thanks go to its co-organizer Hynek Němec, but also to the city of Opava, the Moravian-Silesian Region and the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering of the Czech Technical University. All team leaders who prepared students despite the very complicated situation in schools deserve high appreciation.
About the Young Physicists’ Tournament: one of the most prestigious competitions in physics for secondary school students was founded at Moscow university in 1979. One of the co-founders of its international version, which has been organized since 1988, was also a former employee of the Institute of Physics Zdeněk Kluiber.