Congratulations to Maxwell’s Angels (aka Elizabeth Appelquist, Sania Lewis, Emma Elley & Hildegard Metzger) who achieved fourth place in the IBM Universities Business Challenge Grand Final in London this weekend.
The Universities Business Challenge is the world’s longest established simulation-based competition. It is designed to develop employability and enterprise skills by helping students develop their team-working abilities, improve their decision-making skills, and increase their knowledge in key business areas such as marketing, finance and production.
Over 300 teams took part in the UK-wide competition. Approximately 30% of teams make it to the regional semi-final – two further teams from the School of Physics and Astronomy: Keplar and Maxwell’s Demons also made it to the semi-final. The top 10 teams go through to the Grand Final.
Well done all!
Universities Business Challenge: http://ubcworldwide.com/
Congratulations to Christos, Ethan, Mike and Matthaios who made first place in the PLANCKS UK preliminaries, and to the University of Edinburgh teams who made it to places 4, 6, 8 and 10 out of 19 teams!
Christos, Ethan, Mike and Matthaios now have the opportunity to participate in the international final which takes place in Denmark in May as members of the UK delegation, alongside teams from Kent and Oxford.
The competition, with a four hour exam, was held at the new headquarters of the IOP at King’s Cross in London. The School of Physics and Astronomy fielded a strong contingent to the competition. Although the exam was viewed as much tougher than in previous years, 5 of the teams in the upper half were from Edinburgh!
This year’s problems included topics ranging from fluid dynamics, to non-equilibrium statistical physics first-passage problems, and even modelling a water wheel from first principles! Presenters at the event discussed the workings of the Antikythera mechanism, and examined shockwave physics at the NIF laser facility in the USA.
The teams JCMBeasts, geDANKen, and Team Edinburgh were evidently left with big smiles after the competition!
PLANCKS (The Physics League Across Numerous Countries for Kick-ass Students) is a theoretical physics competition for bachelor and master students. The final competition is a three-day event containing an opening symposium, the contest itself, and filled to the brim with numerous excursions and social activities. The intention is to increase international collaboration, host social activities and stimulate the personal development of individual contestants.
PLANCKS is run by the International Association of Physics Students (IAPS) – an association of physics students and student societies from around the globe.
Find out more: https://www.iaps.info/plancks/what-is-plancks/
The University Physics Competition is an international contest for undergraduate students, who work in teams of three and spend a weekend in November analysing a real-world scenario using the principles of physics and writing a formal paper describing their work.
Congratulations to year 2 students Jacob Kemprud, Matt Chouzouris and Bowei Zhang who achieved a silver medal in the competition. Out of approximately 300 teams, this trio were ranked in the top 18% – which is an excellent achievement!
Their task involved analysing a spacecraft’s dynamics during acceleration in the problem ‘Sending a Light Sail Propelled Nanocraft to Alpha Centauri’.
University Physics Competition: http://www.uphysicsc.com/home.html
