Welcome to UBC Physics Olympics Website
Every year teams from high schools across British Columbia compete in six physics & astronomy events. The team with the highest overall score receives a trophy for their school, as well as other awards. Up to five students from a team can participate in any given event, and different students from a team can participate in different events. As such, teams may have between 1 and 30 students.
While every school team must have a designated coach on the day of the competition, we do not require that the coach be the physics teacher for the school. Any responsible adult may serve as the designated coach, including teachers, parents, administrators, or friends.
Details concerning the logistics of the event will be included in the rule book. To see past projects please see the Results page for videos!
The 2023 Physics Olympics will be held in-person on UBC campus, on Saturday, March 4th, 2023.
Team registration will open in January 2023, and the rule book will be accessible from this site by the end of January. We will post any updates here. For questions about the event, please review the video below from our Physics Olympics Workshop for Teachers, or contact outreach@phas.ubc.ca.
Physics Olympics Preparation Workshop For BC Teachers (Zoom Online) | November 17th, 2022 from 7:00pm-8:00pm PST.
We ran an online Physics Olympics preparation workshop on how to prep your class for this event. Experienced teachers and presenters shared their hands-on experiences and best tips for preparing physics classes for the Labs, Pre-builds, Quizzics and Fermi question sessions.
Missed our Physics Olympics Workshop? Please View Our Zoom Recording here:
Physics Olympics Feedback
“Some of the highlights of my career were my trips to UBC for the Physics Olympics. It was always a valuable experience for me and the students I brought down.” – Tom Nagy, Physics teacher (Mount Boucherie Secondary, West Kelowna)
“The UBC PO is always a highlight of our students’ school year.” – Louay El Halabi, Physics teacher (Semiahmoo Secondary, Surrey BC)
Physics Olympics 2022 participating teams
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*Looking for information about the International Physics Olympiad? The International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) is the World Championship Physics Competition for High School students and is held annually in a different country. For the official IPhO website, please see here. The national student team to represent Canada for 2023 will be selected from top placements in the annual Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) High School Prize Exam. For more information, please see the Canadian Physics Olympiad program page here.