On Saturday at Penncrest High School, the Physics Olympics team of 25 Harriton students waged scholastic war against eight other high schools in the region at the first competition of the year.  When the dust settled, arch rival Penncrest and Harriton were at the top of the heap, with Penncrest barely edging out Harriton in the total meet score, 730 to 720.

Stellar performances from the Harriton squad were highlighted by the builders. In the Toothpick Egg Swing, Nat Snyder and Mike Kontra won the gold medal by building a device that beat out the 53 other devices. This competition requires an egg to be placed inside a toothpick container and is swung into a brick wall from a height of two meters. The egg must survive the crash intact.

In Mousetrap Car Bowling, Alex Herriot proved his engineering prowess by building a car that produced the competition’s only strike, knocking down 10 empty 2-liter bottles from a distance of 10 meters.  Congratulations goes out to all the Physics Olympics team members on an outstanding opener.