2001 School Magazine

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On our arrival back in Australia we found we had become minor celebrities. We did interviews on numerous radio stations, appeared in the local newspapers, the Courier Monand The Australian and spoke live to Tracey and Steve on Today The trip wouldn't have been possible without the help and support of many people. Firstly we would like to thank Mrs Hancock for giving us the opportunity to take part in this tournament. To the Lab Assistants. Mrs Love and Mrs Lanham. and fellow Year 12 Physics students, thanks for your assistance in conducting experimental research. We thank our parents for their encouragement. support, financial assistance and accepting phone calls at 3am from excited final1sts. We especially thank Mr Allinson for keeping us constantly entertained with his really. really, really, really bad goodjokes, and Dr Stephens for her advice on shopping. fashion and European guys. Oh. .. and also for their greatly appreciated help with our preparation for the competition. We truly did learn a lot from our experiences. Physics can be cool - it was our ticket to the experience of a lifetime MCIono Ling, Linchoy MCGmth, Rhionnon Mumenn, Tiffony Sproles and Geneweve momson

The third day of competition brought us good luck. After a very pleasing fourth round against the Swedes and Georgians, we maintained our rank of fourth place, just out of reach of the finals. With victory over these teams behind us. we went on confidently to face the Czech and Russian teams in the last preliminary round We need^a to boost our rank to third in order to get into the finals Our performance however, was average and we didn't believe it was enough to boost us into third place During another Tapiola cafeteria meal, featuring fluorescent red '50/1d raspberry soup: we were rather downcast. when a juror approached us and asked us to send him the newspaper report about the IYPT when we got back to Australia Confused about why anyone would write about our average performance, the juror explained that we had won a place in the final The entire cafeteria must have been extremely shocked to see five Australian girls suddenly jump up, sprint, slip and slide around the school in order to view the results board. We had managed to come third. eliminating Austria from the final by only 0 6 points! The day of the final eventually arrived. Everyone woke up at some ungodly hour due to a combination of nerves and bad sleeping patterns - a result of the strange sunrise and sunset times After a breakfast of being unable to eat much, we headed to the ESPoo Cultural Centre for our final fight. On our arrival, we were faced with thousands of seats. video cameras and very technical equipment. However, we weren't fazed by this seemingly Intimidating setting (well at least we tried not to show 11 - unlike our confident team leader who mysteriously vanished behind the seat in front of him). The competition was of an extremely high standard and at the Closing Ceremony we were awarded second place behind Slovakia

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