What we achieved within the International Young Physicists' Tournament in Term 1 was some of the most inspiring and satisfying work we've done at high school.

 We worked together to pool our research and findings and thrashed out hours of theory with whiteboards, covered top to bottom in frantic scribbles, so that no detail was left without a solid theoretical debate. 

Our attempts to pull together working experiments (“TAPE FIXES EVERYTHING!!”) and scrape some useable data (“Two points of data and no trendline? Just invent a rate of decay!”) were entertaining but honestly chaotic at times (the night before the competition we were staying up until crazy o’clock to finish (*make*) our power points). However, at the end of the day those moments, where it all seemed to fall into place, and the pieces finally fit together, made every second worth it. 

We've never been more proud of a team project - the depth of research and understanding achieved within those problems was more than any of us thought possible going in. The constant support and encouragement built within our team was what made the journey possible and we won’t ever be able to thank Mrs Phoon enough for how much she did for us every step of the way. And at the end of it all, our Auckland Physics trip was a great time with an awesome bunch of people. Physics Bubble forever!! 

Rhiannon Hewitt