Westminster School Wins UK Safe Cracking Competition

A team of Year 12 safe crackers from Westminster School are the winners of Weizmann UK’s tenth annual physics tournament. It was a close competition with a total of 16 teams from UK schools taking part in the virtual tournament on Sunday 6 February 2022.

Almost 80 Year 12 students from 9 schools competed testing their physics knowledge by designing a safe which could be cracked only by solving two physics riddles. Each team had to explain the concept behind their safe, the physics behind their riddles and how to crack into their safe and reset.

Judging was followed by an exhibition where teams could present their safe's to their peers.

The UK competition winners were:

1st place: Westminster School - H2O

2nd place: Eltham College – Smoke & Mirrors

3rd place: St Paul's School – GTW

Best Newcomer: St Mary's College – Vortex

All winning teams will take their safe cracking skills to the next level: the Virtual International Safe Cracking Tournament at the Weizmann Institute of Science which will take place online 4-6 April 2022.

The competition was judged by a panel of experts including Science Communicator, Thomas Briggs, Storm Rae, Head of Education at the National Museum of Computing and Weizmann Alum, Guv Ziv who is now a Professor of Socio-Environmental Systems at the University of Leeds.  Also on the panel was Adi Jacobson who is a veteran of Weizmann UK’s prestigious educational programme, the Dr. Bessie Lawrence International Summer Science Institute held each year on the campus of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot.

The young physicists who will next year apply for university were also given a special presentation about ULTRASAT by Prof. Eli Waxman in the Department of Particle Physics & Astrophysics at the Weizmann Institute.

ULTRASAT is a scientific satellite that is planned to be launched to GEO orbit in Q1 2025. It will be carrying a telescope with an unprecedentedly large field of view (204 squared degrees), that will conduct the first wide-field survey of transient and variable ultraviolet (UV, 230-290nm) sources. ULTRASAT will revolutionize our understanding of the hot transient universe.

Westminster shared their fantastic win here https://www.westminster.org.uk...

The Weizmann UK Safe Cracking Tournament is CREST accredited and students who take part can use their work to gain a Gold CREST Award which is recognised by both UCAS and the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme. The CREST scheme is run by the British Science Association and accredits science, technology, engineering and maths activities for young people.

List of Participating Schools for the 2022 online tournament:

Dulwich College, Eltham College, Ibstock Place School, Sevenoaks School, St Mary's College, St Paul's School, The London Academy of Excellence Tottenham, Tonbridge School & Westminster School.

Published: February 08, 2022