Welcome to the UBC Physics Olympics site
Dear BC High Schools,
We have a date for the 2027 49th UBC Physics Olympics: mark your calendars for Saturday February 27th, 2027 on UBC-V campus.
We look forward to starting our preparations for this year. We hosted 80 teams this 2026 and are anticipating the same for 2027. Thank you for being a part of this incredible event! We look forward to having you here next February!
The Physics Olympics is a multi-event competition supporting intellectual and hands-on building and testing challenges for secondary students, and showcasing creative physics and engineering talents from schools across the province.
This event will feature two pre-builds, two labs, a Fermi questions event and Quizzics!, a physics game-show-style event. There are challenges for every physics skill-set. For students and their teachers & coaches, this is the greatest amount of competitive physics fun and games in one event in the country! We hope you will be interested in participating: we have many staff and faculty supports to help answer your questions and help you to prepare your teams.
For new and experienced physics teachers, we will be running a pre-event Teachers’ Workshop via zoom in November (we will be posting the date here, shortly). This workshop will cover:
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- How you can get involved
- Where to find supports for builds/labs/preparing your team
- *and is a great place to start networking with other BC teachers
For any questions, comments and ideas, please contact outreach@phas.ubc.ca.
** This event is an in-person event only for schools in British Columbia **
Teacher’s Workshop
Are you new to the UBC Physics Olympics? Are you a new physics teacher? Feeling hesitant to sign up your class for this event as you don’t know what it takes? Would you like to support your students who are excited about physics and would like to meet other students who love science?
Join our Teacher’s Workshop for an enjoyable and informative session, bringing together new and experienced high school teachers and students with our event organizers to answer all your questions about how to prepare your class for participating in this event and how to make every heat count!
We provide a lot of support, and so does your community of physics teachers. This workshop will run in November (we will post the date here on this website). Be part of the biggest High School physics competition in Canada!
Physics Facility Tours
Part of the fun of coming to UBC from different parts of the province is to see a bit of UBC campus, including some of our physics & astronomy research facilities. As in previous years, we will be organizing tours for 2027.
To get more information about tours, please contact outreach@phas.ubc.ca.
Physics Olympics Organization & Logistics
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 are included in the rule book. For previous rule books and our upcoming 2027 rule book, please see our Rule Book page. School teams arrive at the lobby of the Hennings Building around 8:30 am to register, receive the envelope with all the information, and store the pre-builds. The schedule runs from 9am-5pm (approximately). UBC Physics Olympics takes place in the following buildings: Hennings, Hebb, and IRC (Woodward). These buildings can be located on UBC map: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index.php .
The interactive map for wayfinding at UBC can be found here: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index.php
To see past projects please see the Results page for videos!
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)
Thank YOU so much for all the hard work that went into making this happen. My students learned so much these past few weeks preparing and enjoyed themselves tremendously. It was a terrific learning opportunity as always. – Mrs Greenwood, Physics/Computer Programming Teacher
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)
See our 2026 Physics Olympics participating teams
Click on the map to open in a new tab.
Looking for something else?
*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 different countries. For the official IPhO website, please see here. Our National student team to represent Canada for 2025 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.