The University Physics Competition (UPC) of 2020 was recently successfully completed. The competition attracted a total of 29 teams from Tongji University, which won two gold medals, eight silver medals, eight bronze medals and 10 accomplishment awards. This marked the first time that Tongji University won gold medals at the UPC since its teams started to participate in the competition in 2015.
UPC is an international competition for undergraduate students sponsored by the American Physical Society (APS) and American Astronomical Society (AAS). Students work in teams of no more than three and select one out of two problems to address. Each team is required to analyze a real-world problem with principles of physics, present their solution in a paper, and submit it online within 48 hours. For this competition, Problem A is to design an Ion thruster spacecraft to Saturn, and Problem B is to study Quadrotor UAV’s stability in wind.
The spacecraft trajectory designed by the gold-medal winning team
A total of 346 teams from around the world participated in the competition and completed their projects. Following fierce contest, six gold medals (1.7%), 54 silver medals (15%) and 99 bronze medals (29%) and 187 accomplishment awards (54%) were awarded to competitors. Under the guidance of teachers ZHANG Jianwei, ZHANG Yuzhong, FANG Kai and MA Yan from the School of Physics Science and Engineering, 29 teams of 82 undergraduate students from Tongji joined UPC. They are from School of Physics Science and Engineering, College of Civil Engineering, College of Mechanical Engineering and School of Foreign Languages. Among them, 79 students won prizes and two teams from the School of Physics Science and Engineering respectively won a gold medal for Problems A and B.
Source: https://news.tongji.edu.cn/info/1003/76561.htm
