Volume 1: Student Life Chapter 113: The competition questions are highly open
Chen Zhou borrowed Li Li's computer again and found the official website of UPC through an online search.
The official website interface is very simple, with only an English introduction and some basic information about previous events.
Chen Zhou first took a quick look and muttered to himself: "It seems that my English level needs to be improved..."
Although he could understand it, there were many professional terms and vocabulary that he was unfamiliar with.
From this introduction, Chen Zhou learned the basic information of this event.
Prior to the competition, all participating teams must be officially registered on the website by a trainer.
The instructor will also serve as their team advisor and will be responsible for verifying that the participating team members comply with the competition rules and pay the team registration fee.
All registrations must be submitted at least 6 hours before the official start of the competition.
After the game starts, each team chooses one of the two questions that appear on the website and answers it.
The problem itself can be understood by students with at least one year of college physics experience, but the design concept of the problem is open.
Therefore, this competition is mainly a challenge for senior students.
Furthermore, these questions may contain incomplete information and students must conduct background research.
Make some reasonable assumptions based on the appropriate context.
Based on these assumptions, we conduct analysis.
In other words, there is no clear and correct solution to the competition questions.
This piece of information alone made Chen Zhou realize the challenge of this event.
After all, open questions are the most difficult to answer.
During the competition, teams can use books, journals, computers, the Internet, programs they have written, or any other non-living resources.
However, they will be prohibited from negotiating with anyone other than their teammates.
This requirement also corresponds to what was mentioned above, that the design of the question is open.
The event organizing committee is completely confident that you cannot find the correct solution to the problem from any channel.
Then, there are requirements for the final competition results.
The participating teams must provide a theoretical analysis of their proposed solution using physical principles and write a formal paper in English detailing their work.
Each paper must begin with a 300-word abstract providing the key details and results of the work performed.
For Chen Zhou, this one may not be so comfortable for him except writing in English.
The experience he gained from his previous research project was enough to ensure that he could complete the work.
So, when Chen Zhou saw this request, he thought it was not a big problem.
At the end of the competition, the event officials require that the papers must be sent to the designated official email address.
There are clear requirements for the sending time, which must be within 48 hours of the official start of the competition.
After the competition, the organizing committee will evaluate and rank all the participating papers, and the best approximately 2% of the papers will be named gold medal winners.
Then 15-20% are silver medalists, 25-30% are bronze medalists, and 50-60% are outstanding athletes.
As for the remaining at least 40% of the participating papers, they can only receive the Participation Award.
In short, Chen Zhou's first impression after reading the entire competition introduction was that this competition was quite interesting and could be considered a small research project.
The difficulty of this competition lies in how to accurately analyze problems and propose solutions from open questions within 48 hours.
And conduct theoretical analysis of the plan, successfully complete the entire project, and write an English paper.
The allocation of time and the division of labor among personnel must be reasonable.
For Chen Zhou, it was his first time participating in such a competition and the challenge was self-evident.
After learning about the entire competition, Chen Zhou immediately searched for questions from previous competitions.
Looking at the information searched, Chen Zhou couldn't help but feel that the openness of this topic was really extraordinary. From small to large, there were all kinds of competition topics.
Some of the topics that sound awesome include [launching a micro-spacecraft propelled by light pressure to Proxima Centauri], [sending a laser-propelled nano-model to Alpha Centauri], and [protecting a Mars exploration spacecraft].
The topic itself is not only highly open, but also a practical problem currently being researched in the aerospace field.
Considering that one of the sponsors of the competition was the American Astronomical Society, Chen Zhou could understand why such a competition question was set.
There are also some competition topics that sound like real life, such as [Roller coaster design], [Compost size of compost turner], and so on.
Although it doesn't sound that high-sounding, the theoretical knowledge of physics involved is no less than the above.
Because they are closer to life, the difficulty of the questions is not simpler than astronomy questions, but rather more difficult.
Chen Zhou wrote down the questions of the competition on a piece of draft paper, and kept tapping the draft paper with the pen in his hand.
Looking at the information and requirements of the competition question "Launch a micro-spacecraft propelled by light pressure to Proxima Centauri", Chen Zhou tried to think about how he would solve the problem if it were him.
"Model, we need to build a reasonable model..."
As Chen Zhou was thinking, he put the pen in his hand on the draft paper and started writing quickly.
The difficulty of this problem lies in estimating the motion of objects on a cosmic scale.
Only by constructing a reasonable model, and the physical theory involved in the model needs to be self-consistent.
Afterwards, based on the model, a quantitative analysis of the related physical phenomena is made.
Only by doing something can you know its actual difficulty.
Looking at the draft paper that he had quickly filled up with his writing and drawing, Chen Zhou sighed slightly. This thing is really troublesome...
"Chen Zhou, what are you writing?" When Chen Zhou stopped writing, Li Li leaned his head over.
"Take a look." Chen Zhou pushed the computer in front of Li Li.
Li Li took a look and said, "Fuck, you don't study mathematics anymore, and you're studying physics now?"
Li Li's voice successfully attracted the other two friends who were concentrating on reading.
Zhao Qiqi and Zhu Mingli stood up and moved behind Chen Zhou and the other man.
Zhao Qiqi: "Tsk tsk tsk, the International University Physics Competition..."
"Huh? You know this?" Chen Zhou turned around and looked at Zhao Qiqi.
Zhao Qiqi nodded and said, "I've heard of it. It's called the Mathematical Modeling Competition in Physics. It's comparable to the American Mathematical Contest in Mathematical Modeling, but it's more focused on practical problems. It's said that the problems are very open-ended and difficult to solve."
Zhu Mingli was surprised and asked, "Chen Zhou, the midterm exam is coming soon. Why are you looking at this? Are you going to participate? But it seems that this needs to be organized by the school, right?"
Chen Zhou replied: "It was organized by the School of Physics. Yiyi wanted to participate, so I joined."
After a pause, Chen Zhou asked, "Do you want to join? Their physics department is recruiting people. If you want to join, I can ask for you."
Zhao Qiqi shook her head, and Zhu Mingli also shook his head. Their plan was to withstand the pressure inside the dormitory first and then participate in the mathematics .
Li Lizhe said: "Chen Zhou, can I join?"
"Tsk tsk tsk, IMO gold medal, is it time to take action?" Zhao Qiqi joked.
Li Li: "Go read a book."
Hearing this, Chen Zhou smiled and said, "I'll ask for you."
Before he finished speaking, Chen Zhou's cell phone rang.
The caller ID is [Professor Wu Xiping].
