The International Shalheveth Freier Physics Tournament
Bnei Akiva School’s Grade 11 Physics Team will represent Canada on March 20-21 at The International Shalheveth Freier Physics Tournament for high school students at The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rechovot, Israel.
Four Grade 11 Or Chaim students - Shragie Berger, Michael Ihilchik, Ariel Kelman and Adin Pellow placed first out of the seven teams entered in the preliminary Canadian competition held at The Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto (CHAT) on February 15th.
The International Shalheveth Freier Physics Tournament for high school students is an annual competition that challenges students of physics to build a safe using simple materials and a locking mechanism that operates on the principles of physics. Students register for the competition in October and have until mid-February to build, perfect and test their safes until the preliminary regional competitions.
The teams gather by geographic region and try to open the safes of their opponents. Each individual team's safe must be open-able in less than five minutes, but must keep opponents stumped for at least ten minutes. Entries are scored by a panel of referees comprised of engineers, university faculty members and previous winners of the competition. Teams get points not only for designing a crack-proof safe, but also for aesthetics, originality and knowledge behind the principles used. Teams also get added points for every safe they manage to crack. The winning team from each region will travel to Israel in March to compete at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot at the “greatest two-day safecracking show-down.”
Mrs. Chocron, Grade 11 and 12 physics teacher is thrilled that three teams from Bnei Akiva Schools participated in the competition and she is especially proud of the Grade 11 boys’ team. “The students have worked really hard and they have learned a lot about practical physics applications,” said Mrs. Chocron. “It is one thing to know the concepts of how electricity flows and another thing to know its practical applications like how it will help open doors.”
“The excitement and the enthusiasm of the evening was palpable,” Mrs. Chocron noted.
“Team work was the key to the evening’s success.”
