From Feb. 18-19, students rode bicycles up and down the halls of Dallastown to earn some points.

Why were they performing this peculiar act? Dallastown recently hosted its 33rd annual Physics Olympics.

The Physics Olympics is a beloved after-school competition where students use physics fundamentals to earn points during challenges.

This year, 27 teams participated from Dallastown and surrounding schools such as Hanover, Red Lion, and York Suburban.

Students ran around the halls, cafeteria, and lobby to complete challenges such as a slow bike race, physics Pictionary, and vortex cannon. Planning for the tests and challenges is a creative and lengthy process for the Olympics committee as they need to ensure the challenges are safe, educational, and fun for participants.

“Each year we meet to decide what events we will be running. We reuse some from previous years and try to come up with at least one or two new events to try new things. We spend one day together over the summer planning but then spend a good amount of time throughout the year separately to plan and prepare as the event comes closer,” science department chair Sam Cohen said.

This year’s planning committee consisted of Cohen and fellow science teachers Whitney Ortman, Lucas Staub, Brian Motter, and retired teacher and Physics Olympics founder, Mark Ilyes.

Students created teams of up to five members to perform the tests and challenges.

“My team placed fourth in the magnet race challenge, so I think that was probably my favorite part. It was kind of stressful chasing the magnet through the maze with the time limit, but it was really fun,” shared senior Brynn Flannery who competed on the team Falling Reverse.

For some events, teams need to come prepared with materials and prior construction, but for others, such as Mirror Madness there is none needed.

Students could earn up to five points for successfully completing each task: five points for first place, four points for second, three points for third, two points for fourth, and one point for fifth. 

While the whole point of the event is to encourage student involvement and have fun using the power of Physics, it is a competition after all and there must be a winner.

This year’s winners were, Beyond the Scope of this Course (first), The Significant Figures (second), INDULGE (third), Circuit-Breaking Cherubs (fourth) and Iron Legion (fifth). All of the teams that placed were Dallastown students.

The Physics Olympics is sponsored by the Engineering Society of York who makes the event possible by donating funds for supplies, T-shirts, cash awards, and the ability for other school districts to participate.