Five Academy students participated in the annual Physics Olympics held at Kapiolani Community College on Feb. 16.

Twenty-eight teams from eight different schools competed in five events based on different concepts of physics which included car jousting, ultrasonic graph challenge, projectile launch, laser maze and aerodynamic challenge.

The team of juniors Mara Gillis and Hulali Alford and sophomore Dominique Bontog won second place in the aerodynamic challenge.

Gillis said, “The Physics Olympics was lots of fun. My favorite event was when we reflected lasers off mirrors in hopes to hit the target. It involved a lot of thinking ahead because we couldn’t turn the laser on until we were done situating the mirrors. Although it was challenging I had a lot of fun.”

Physics teacher, Joseph Lyons, said, “ This event helped to reinforce some of the concepts we learned about in class and also exposed the students to some we have yet to learn. For instance, the girls did very well in the projectile motion launch event. We covered the idea of what angles work best to launch things further and higher in class. They applied this knowledge to set up a short distance with a high launch angle which resulted in the ball landing in the target.”

The team was awarded a ribbon and a second place certificate.