On Saturday, March 1st, 2025, a record-breaking 80 teams participated in the 47th Annual UBC Physics Olympics, making it the largest event ever! A total of 1,077 students from Grades 10-12 competed, representing schools from across British Columbia—Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland, the Okanagan, and the Kootenays.
The Physics Olympics is more than just a competition for our students – it has given them unforgettable memories, skills that will last a lifetime, and a sense of community that continues to grow. Thank you again for everything you do to make this event possible. We’ll be back next year! – Mark Lam, Physics Teacher (Eric Hamber Secondary School)
Report by Dr. Marina Milner-Bolotin
Dear British Columbia Physics Enthusiasts,
The 47th UBC Physics Olympics was our most successful event yet, thanks to your students’ enthusiastic participation, our dedicated volunteers from the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, and our fantastic judges and organizers. We also tried new technology for the Quizzics challenge and we think it worked well! While, we cannot mention everybody who supported the event here, we would like to name a few key people who we would like to thank here, as they spent days and days preparing for the event:
- Dr. Aaron Boley, our Chief Judge, who was also in charge of the Quizzics Challenge
- Drs. Valery Milner and Andrzej Kotlicki – judges for the Pre-Build Challenges
- Drs. Mike Hasinoff and Georg Rieger – judges for the Lab Events
- Dr. Sean McBride – the judge for the Fermi Questions
- Ms. Kirsty Dickson – the main organizer who survived being in charge of many unruly physics profs and grad students
- Dr. Marina Milner-Bolotin – the teacher liaison
- Dr. Janis McKenna – took care of the teachers’ and volunteers’ lounge and all the signage!
Seeing more than 1,000 students, over 100 practicing and future teachers, and many supportive parents gather at UBC to celebrate physics was truly inspiring! The enthusiasm and energy in the air were incredible, and it was no surprise that the event attracted media attention: https://cheknews.ca/i-mean-i-love-physics-campbell-river-student-competes-at-ubc-physics-olympics-saturday-1241390/
This year, we had a record-breaking 81 teams pre-registered and 80 teams participating, making it our largest event ever! A total of 1,077 students from Grades 10-12 competed, representing schools from across British Columbia—Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland, the Okanagan, and the Kootenays.
A special shout-out to David Thompson Secondary School from Invermere, whose team, led by Mrs. Tessa Reilly, traveled nearly 2,000 km round trip (840 km one way) to participate! Not far behind was L.V. Rogers Secondary School from Nelson, led by Angie McTague (almost 1400 km) Other teams also made long journeys from Nelson, Campbell River, Victoria, Nanaimo, Lake Country, and Kelowna, while many others came from the Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, Mission, Chilliwack, and beyond.
We also would like to acknowledge a number of teachers who brought their teams to the event for the first time. Some of them were past student UBC Physics Olympics participants! We hope you felt welcome!
Finally, during the day we had a successful professional development event for physics educators. We are so grateful to our wonderful guest speakers – Dr. Solmaz Khodaeifaal and Stephen Wellsby for their teacher Pro-D workshop: Creative uses of AI in Physics Education. We had more than 40 participants in it! The presenters kindly shared their info with us.
We will be uploading photos and results on our website soon: https://physoly.phas.ubc.ca/. Please keep checking for updates! If you have great pictures you’d like to share, we’d love to see them—feel free to email them to me.
To learn more about the UBC Physics Olympics, please visit the event web site.
Submitted by
Dr. Marina Milner-Bolotin
EDCP Representative on the UBC Physics Olympics Organizing Committee