Physics Olympics

I've been thinking lately about the fun-learning connection, hoping, a lot, that things are getting better, that somehow there are more things fun in school and university than have been dreamt of in my philosophy. And I came across this event called "Physics Olympics" (the link is to Yale University), a competition (sadly) conducted in high schools and Universities apparently around the world - at least as far as Liverpool. In fact, there was an international meet in Bali last year, with 89 countries participating! Bali, even.

The thing is, people are having fun. They're getting to play, with stuff (junky looking stuff at that) and each other. And they're exercising just about every bit of understanding they have about both. To get a better feel for the kinds of challenges they are playing with, take a look at the description of events from the Yale Physics Olympics.

The sad thing about the competitive part is that: 1) it's not really necessary, and 2) for every prize-winning individual or team that goes home deeply stoked about their technical prowess, there are at least ten times that many people who go home discouraged. Not the best educational model. But, at least, for a certain time and for certain people, it's people and learning and fun at their best.