Student Spotlight: Evan Nunez, Alex Polanski and Tim Wilson

Physics team brings home second consecutive victory

Sometimes the best answer is no answer at all. That's a lesson learned from the ECC Physics Team, which took home its second consecutive silver medal in an international competition. Team members Evan Nunez, Alex Polanski and Tim Wilson participated in the 2016 University Physics Competition, an international contest for undergraduate students who work in teams to solve a physics problem over the course of 48 hours.

Nearly 200 student teams submitted papers for judging in the competition. Teams were given the choice of two topics – methods of radioactive waste disposal or the differences in mass between dinosaurs and the largest ancient mammals. Alex said the team, trained by faculty adviser and physics professor John Coroneus, chose the first question, and started researching whether it would be more effective to shoot radioactive nuclear waste into the sun for disposal or into the asteroid belt where it would eventually decay.

Teams had 48 hours to research the problem, decide on the necessary physics and mathematical principles to address the problem, find helpful data and write a technical paper on the issue. Alex said his team determined neither option was a realistic solution to the problem.

During the contest, teams used books, journals, computers, the internet, programs they wrote, and other "nonliving" resources, but they did not consult with any people outside of their team. The ECC team ranked 27 out of 146 on their problem, directly competing with many four-year colleges and universities in United States and abroad such as Cornell University, Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Toronto, Autonomous University of Barcelona, and Civil Aviation University of China.