Strong finish to season 8 for SYP

One more year for SYP has finished, and the upward trajectory for student interest has steadily held up. In the beginning of the year, we reported record numbers of attendance, and that continued throughout the entire season.

Students listening to instructions in a session

In addition to crowd-pleasing topics we looked at in the first semester, the second semester featured sessions on constructional physics, electronics, solid state physics, food physics and, finally, chaos theory. Highlights from these sessions include building model houses and testing them against shaking to imitate an earthquake and even advanced lectures in chaos theory and solid state physics that touched on master's level physics, and yet students enjoyed them immensely.

The 3rd School Cup competition also came to a close, and it was essentially a photo-finish. Teams battled for points until the final session, and the winning team beat out their rivals only by one point - to give perspective, the total point count for the winning team was about 300 points. Teams from various schools showed their mettle all year, performing well on tests as well as showing ability in the four creative extra tasks that were given to them. The best teams were also awarded prizes for their hard work.

Our organizer team with the best teams of the School Cup

 Additionally to the main sessions, regional sessions in cities were also still held - more than ever. Cities of Valmiera, Ventspils, Rezekne and Liepaja saw numerous sessions take place - and Rezekne even had 7 sessions, which is only two less than in our capital!

All in all, the 8th season of SYP was a resounding success, and we will look to keep building on this success to increase our output and outreach even more, allowing more students to see that physics education can be fun indeed!