Day 3: We Won Third Place!!!!

Today there was an exhibition where all the physics teams displayed and demonstrated their safes to the general Israeli public. There was a lot of general interest in The Study School's safe! Many people asked for an explanation of how the safe worked.

After the exhibition, there was the award ceremony and we are proud to announce that The Study placed third out of all the teams!!!!! Afterwards we went and played in the Weizmann Physics Park (pictures below!!!).

Now we are going to the beach in Tel Aviv for a couple of hours before getting onto our flight back to Montreal. Yay Study School!!!

Day 2: Physics Demonstration

While half the groups at the competition were solving safes we went to a scientific workshop that involved the physics behind glass blowing. The seminar was half in Hebrew and English. Talya was chosen as the first volunteer and went up and helped in the formation of a jug by melting glass and mending it into certain shapes. Following this many of the international teams were chosen as volunteers and another from our group. Asli was chosen to participate in a group activity with another Israeli boy, which involved a competition to see who could blow water the furthest and obviously Asli won. Apart from this we learned about the different properties of glass such as it never reacts with anything as well as it not being a solid but a liquid. We were all pleased to be able to leave with presents that will always be with us to remind us of our experience here in Israel.

Day 2: The End of Day Physics Circus (By Jessica)

After a long day of hard work we were provided with an outdoor buffet in the main amphitheater. As Ms Miller said "There were delicious israeli delicacies as far as the eye can see".

Once our stomachs were full and satisfied we were presented with a circus filled with all kinds of juggling; diabolos, plate spinners, balls and devil sticks. We were given the chance to turn into jugglers ourselves and try each of the items ourselves and came to find that everything is a lot harder than it looks.

We also saw, to Sass' excitement, a balloon animal show where we were taught how to make various creatures using only balloons. We finished this activity with a balloon statue competition. We were given 15 balloons and had to largest self-standing structure where Team Canada prevailed and won!

Finally, the icing on the cake, A fire show! This involved a fire dancer juggling fire using different flammable materials.

Day 2: Meeting Physics Teams from Other Countries (By Cristina)

In a matter of a few hours, we became very close to the Toronto team. Well, after spending 11 hours on a plane next to each other, it was pretty inevitable. The other teams here are almost just as welcoming. It is so exciting to meet so many different people that come from all over the world, and although there is a slight language barrier, we disregarded our differences and already became Facebook friends. We sit and talk about our countries’ differences, and quickly learned that other countries seem to think we say "aboot" instead of "about"… No worries, we quickly informed them of this faulty information. When it was time to view each others’ safes, we saw how each team had such vast differences in the way that they incorporated different physics principles into their locking mechanism. Since Cristina was the one to stay behind with the safe, she noticed the different approaches that each of the teams had. Some Israeli safe crackers came in with a smile, and worked together talking about the tactic they were gonna use, some came in and decided that they weren't going to use their knowledge and assumed they could just attack the safe. Then there was one team, where they had a genius who figured out the complete workings of the safe in a matter of 2 minutes without breaking a single sweat. All in all, it was really exciting to see these different cultures and this trip was a once a lifetime experience.

Day 2: The Competition (By Asli)

After the judging and the glass-blowing workshop, we started the inter-team competition. While one to two members of our team, which usually ended up being Cristina, stayed with our safe, the other three to four members would try to break into other safes. We would read each safe's riddle or clue, and then we would have 10 minutes to crack the safe. If we couldn't break into the safe, the person staying behind from the other team would have to show us how to open it within two minutes. If the person from the other team could not break into their own safe, or if there was a malfunction that stopped us from opening the safe, we would receive points as if we had succeeded. We broke into 1 out of 6 safes, but we were so close to opening a second one! All of the safes we saw were unique and needed a completely different approach for the break-in. Fortunately, we had Talya and her optimism to keep us going when we got discouraged. Once the attempt was over, we would grade each safe based on originality, aesthetics, and overall impression. We then ranked each safe that we saw. Each team that saw our safe gave us a grade. The overall grading system for each safe consists of the following:
-45% comes from the judges' evaluation
-20% comes from peer evaluation
-15% comes from how many times our safe was broken into
-10% comes from our success in breaking into other teams' safe
-10% comes from the written reports that we've been sending in to the competition since November

All in all, the competition was definitely a friendly and thoroughly enjoyable one. Even though some of the teams were very nervous and stressed, we had a blast!

Day 2: Reflection on Jerusalem (By Sass)

Despite our tight schedule, we wanted to explore Israel, so Ms. Miller arranged a tour around Jerusalem. We met our guide at the Jaffa Gate of the Old City. He began with the history and politics of Jerusalem and showed us maps of different cities. Our first stop was at the summit of Mount Olive, where we saw a remarkable view of Jerusalem. To our grand excitement, we ran into a camel that was very friendly.

Our guide led us back to the Gates of the Old City, and we started to walk around the narrow streets. We visited the area where it is believed Jesus Christ had his last supper. Much to our surprise, there was no table. Enhancing our Holy experience, we witnessed a traditional Jewish wedding with spontaneous singing and dancing. As we continued our walk, our guide offered us some Jerusalem bread that we all found delicious! We then arrived in the Armenian quarter where the largest market is found. The market sold everything, ranging from spices to handbags.

Our next stop was the Holy Sepulchre church, situated on the hill where Jesus was crucified. Several religious orders such as the Roman Orthodox and the San Franciscan Monks are responsible for the church. For this wonderful church, our guide took us on the path Jesus walked when carrying the cross, more formally called the Via Dolorosa. At the end of the 14 steps, we stopped for dinner. We enjoyed a typical dish of falafel and hummus.

Our last stop was at the Western Wall, the holiest place for the Jewish religion. Following the custom, we each wrote a wish on a piece of paper that we placed in the cracks of the wall. Our visit to the Old City was a great experience.

First Day - Fly Montreal Tel Aviv and Visit Jerusalem

Hello to all from Rehovot, Israel at the Weizman Institute of Science,

On Sunday, March 14 we all got on a 7a.m. flight to Toronto, where we met up with a team from CHAT School. Together, we traveled to Tel-Aviv, and after 21 hours of travel, we finally arrived at the Weizmann Institute.

Later, although we were all had had less than 10 hours of sleep in the past 36 hours, we decided to sight see in Jerusalem. We visited the many stops of the Via Dolorosa (where Jesus took his last walk), the panoramic view of the city from the top of Mount Olive, the location of the last super, as well as the market. 

Our safe made it in one piece, YAY! We ran into some power problems but we managed to solve them relatively quickly. We are starting to meet other teams and they seem really nice. We look forward to competing against and getting to know them tomorrow. 

With love from the Physics team!

Asli, Cristina, Jessica, Ms. Miller, Sass and Talya