My name is Michael Pascoe and I’ve entered in this year’s Junior Breakthrough Challenge.

I first heard about the Challenge from Khan Academy in an email it sent me and I immediately thought this could be fun. Khan Academy is an American non-profit educational organisation, founded in 2008 by Salman Khan with the goal of creating a set of online tools that help educate students.

The aim of this global challenge is to create a three-minute video describing concepts/ideas from the fields of maths, life sciences or physics.

This video is my entry; it describes the physics involved in the black hole which was recently exposed in the media. This black hole is in the middle of the galaxy dubbed M87.

I found making the video much harder than understanding the physics, even though I have experience in editing videos.

I submitted the video in June - a few hours before the competition closed. The first step of judging was the peer review where each of the contestants had to judge at least five other entries.

Now it is a waiting game as the first evaluation committee makes a decision on the top entries before a popular vote is made by the public. This will determine regional winners and by November an outright winner will be named.

The grand prize is something to behold! It consists of a university scholarship worth $US 250,000 and $US 100,000 for a new science laboratory at the winner’s school, AND the winner’s nominated science teacher will receive $US 50,000.

No wonder this competition is popular around the world!