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2025-26 Western Kentucky Physics Olympics: Event Descriptions

The Science of Food

Judges determine the overall winner based on each team's score in the five different events.

  1. The Do-Ahead Project: Spaghetti Noodle Tower
  2. The Plan-Ahead Competition: Edible Musical Instruments
  3. The Communication/Calculation Challenge
  4. The Impromptu Team Activity
  5. The Order-Of-Magnitude Quiz

 

The Do-Ahead Project: Spaghetti Noodle Tower
  1. Design and construct a free-standing tower (no kits are allowed) using only spaghetti (uncooked and/or cooked) and chemical adhesives (e.g.: glue).  Lamination (gluing spaghetti length-wise) is allowed.  Physical adhesion (rubber bands, clips, etc.) will result in disqualification.  The tower must stand on its own.  Spaghetti is defined as “spaghetti” so labeled in grocery stores (~1.778 mm diameter), and not angel hair nor thin spaghetti/pasta.  The spaghetti can be shaped, bent, broken, or cut as desired.
  2. The tower must have a minimum height of 35 cm and can have a maximum height of 203 cm; it must be able to fit through a doorway fully vertical (without being tilted).  The “top” of the tower will be the place that can successfully hold the test mass, noted below, on its own.  The base must be no wider than 15 cm by 15 cm.  The height will be measured from the bottom of the base to the loading location.  The height and tower mass will be measured by a judge during the impounding period.
  3. The goal is a tall tower that can hold a test mass on its top.
    1. The first criterion is holding at its top a ½ kg mass for a minimum of 20 seconds without collapsing.  The mass is a disc shape, with dimensions of 11.5cm in diameter and 1.5cm in height.  If your tower holds the mass for less than 20 seconds, it will be placed into the lowest-ranked group.
    2. The second criterion is height: taller towers will rank higher.  The top of your tower must be able to accommodate the test mass.
    3. The third criterion will be tower mass, with lower tower mass ranking higher.  The masses of the tower will be measured before the testing masses are loaded.
  4. During the competition, the first judge will load the mass.  A second judge will begin a timer when the first judge removes their hand from the mass, and third judge will video-record the duration of the mass test for confirmation.
  5. Please email us with your rules questions no later than 36 hours before the start of the event day.  This will ensure that there are no unexpected disqualifications.
 
Plan-ahead event: Edible Musical Instruments
Each team is required to design and construct, from completely edible components, one to four musical instruments capable of playing the children’s song, The Itsy Bitsy Spider.  You will gain additional points for each member participating, up to all four members of your team (typically, a team where each member presents, tests and performs a different instrument will score higher than a team where only one member participates).  Each team member participating must present their instrument for inspection, test their instrument, and perform the song with their group.  There are five notes that must be played: G, A, B, C, & D (the three occurrences of low D can be omitted).  The scoring will be divided into three components:
 
  1. The inspection of the instrument(s)
  2. The ability for the performer(s) to make the instrument(s) accurately hit the necessary notes during a test
  3. Quality of the team’s performance.
Each participating team member will describe the design and function of their instrument, and will play the five required notes: G, A, B, C, & D. A microphone and computer will be used to digitally capture the sound tests, and the computed power spectrum of the tones will allow the judges to compare the results to the standard musical frequencies.  We will be using the free app Tunable, available on iOS and Android phones.  You may bring in “backup” instruments, each of which require pictures of the construction and materials and tools, but only one instrument per team member will be used for scoring.  Once an instrument has been submitted for inspection, it cannot be substituted for a backup instrument.
 
The first assessment for this event will be the sound test. The scoring will be based on the ability to accurately create the primary frequency for each of the five notes.  For the most accurate measure of the pitch, your team's musician needs to sustain each of the five required notes.  In order to gain maximum points, each sustained note must stay within a half-tone of the required note and must be played long enough to be picked up by the measuring software, typically 1 second.  The standard frequencies ( http://reden.sdf.org/mirroredwebsites/pages.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html ) for the five notes are:
 
G = 196.00 Hz,
A = 220.00 Hz,
B = 246.94 Hz,
C = 261.63 Hz, and
D = 293.66 Hz.
 
The interval between any two successive whole notes is f1 = f2 · 2(1/12) hz.
 
Each team will then perform the song The Itsy Bitsy Spider, with each participating member playing the song in time with other participating members. The scoring will be based on the overall quality of the performance. Teams must download the linked PDF file containing the sheet music for the officially approved version of the song. Without the time signature, the notes to be played are:
 
- G G G A B B B A G A B G     B B C D D C B C D B
G G A B B A G A B G - -       G G G A B B B A G A B G
 
If any participating members do not fully complete the song, your team will not score the maximal points.
 
Three judges will subjectively score the performance on scales from 1 to 5.
 
Your video performance, if consented, may be uploaded to the internet (e.g., WKU Physics & Astronomy website and YouTube).
 
Your team will have points deducted for visible mold/rotting/decay on any instrument.
 
The final ranking will be based on the sum of the three component scores (instrument inspection (instrument materials and variety), tuning, and playing). Ties will be broken first in favor of number of band performers, and then by overall tuning score.
 
Communication/Calculation Challenge: 
Your team will divide into two pairs. Two members of the team will be given information,  and will be asked to produce a written plan to allow the remaining two teammates to accurately use the information in the plan to perform a task.
 
Details will be posted later.
 
Impromptu Activity: 

The instructions regarding this event are not released until it begins, so everyone is on an equal footing. Activity is the key word for this competition, with the goal being for each team to achieve the desired result as quickly as possible. The situation is designed to reward teamwork and common sense thinking as well as knowledge of physics. Every team will come away with smiles and good memories regardless of how well they master the particular challenge.

 

Order of Magnitude Quiz (Fermi Questions):

Arrive at a reasonable approximation for the value of a complex situation with very little to no information available to directly compute the answer. In this quiz, the contestants will need to quickly make assumptions for values to use in simple calculations in order to arrive at the "correct" answer, stated as the power of ten of the number that fits the accepted value.

Teams will receive 10 questions to complete within 15 minutes. The teams can divide the work in any way they see fit, but only one answer per question per team will be accepted. Answers will be judged according to how many orders of magnitude the team's answer is from the judge's solution. The lowest score wins -- 0 points awarded for the answer accepted by the panel of judges, with 1 point scored per order of magnitude from the accepted value.

Examples of Order-of-Magnitude Quiz questions include:

  • How many electrons enter the starter motor when a new, full-sized pickup starts?
  • How many times would a tire of a Ford Taurus rotate when driven from NYC to LA?
  • Estimate the number of gallons of gasoline used annually by all the cars in the USA.

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 Last Modified 9/10/25