Physics Day gets second wind
Utah’s chilly weather might beg to differ but spring has arrived with a welcome harbinger and favorite rite of passage for aspiring scientists: Utah State University’s Physics Day at Lagoon.
On Friday, May 14, more than 6,000 teens from middle and high schools in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Nevada will transform Davis County’s überplayground into a giant laboratory to explore such basic physics concepts as gravity, projectile motion, centrifugal force and – this year – energy.
New to Physics Day 2010 is the Utah MESA Wind Energy Challenge. Middle and high school teams will compete in an engineering challenge to design and build energy-generating windmills. Winners at Lagoon will advance to the national MESA USA Wind Energy Challenge in Colorado in June.
The day-long event features Physics Day’s perennially popular activities and competitions, including the Colossus’ Colossal G-Forces Contest, in which teens use wrist accelerometers they’ve built themselves to measure G-forces while zooming through the Fire Dragon roller coaster’s 65-foot diameter loops. Participants will bomb a giant bull’s eye with raw eggs in self-designed protective containers from the Sky Ride, display ideas for thrilling rides of the future, vie in a robotics grudge match and compete in the Physics Bowl academic competition. While having fun, teens will have the opportunity to earn scholarships to USU.
“What better laboratory to entice young people than an amusement park?” says J.R. Dennison, USU physics professor, who was among the founders of the popular event 21 years ago.
Initiated by USU’s Physics Department, Physics Day is coordinated by USU and partners Idaho National Laboratory, Lagoon and the NASA Rocky Mountain Space Grant Consortium, with sponsorships from multiple private and governmental agencies. More than 110,000 young people have participated in the event since its inception in 1990 and more than $1 million in scholarships and prizes have been awarded to participants.
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