POPTOR

POPTOR

Physics Outreach Program in TORonto and Physics Olympiad Preparation in TORonto.

Dear High School Student!

Welcome to the fantastic, terrific, awesome physics classes at the Department of Physics within the new outreach program of the University of Toronto!  This year Physics Outreach Program is run by the Faculty of Arts and Science and the Department of Physics in a new updated format.

You will visit the research groups of the Department of Physics, talk to our professors and PhD students, perform experiments that our undergraduate students do in their 1st and 2nd year, and you also can participate in a Camp and selection exams in early May to become a Canadian National Physics team member in the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO).  You will meet our former POPTOR participants - winners of prizes and awards at the International Physics Olympiad.  We invite students of grades 10 - 12.

To be invited to the classes and tours of the research labs at the Department of Physics in November 2012, January and March 2013, students must submit the introductory problem set, posted at the page Current problem sets on this web site.   Check news at our Notice Board below to get all important information on time.

If you want to try yourself in competition for a membership in the Canadian National Physics team, we will help you with training and preparation.

The International Physics Olympiad is an annual competition among secondary school students from over 84 countries.

The 2012 Olympiad was held in Tallinn/Tartu (Estonia). Every year POPTOR students contribute to the Canadian IPhO team success with their prizes and awards.

 To be selected for the National Team the Ontario students participating in POPTOR must succeed in POPTOR and CAP Exam. Visit Canadian Chemistry and Physics Olympiads - National Programme for more information about CAP Exam. The CAP High School Exam is on Tuesday April 9, 2013 from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm.  If high school teachers do not hear from CAP about the High School CAP Exam by the middle of February please contact Dr. Jean-Marc Noel, Royal Military College, jean-marc.noel@rmc.ca.  Students of Grades 9-10 should also consider the Michael Smith Science Challenge. Visit http://www.smithchallenge.ubc.ca/. You can find more about Canadian Science and Mathematical competitions on the Vector web site.

Notice Board

• Students from the POPTOR program have received 4 out of 5 spots for the National Team.  They are Henry Wu, Bailey Gu, Hao Zhe Sheng, Jiaxi (Jannis) Mei.  Congratulations.
  
• The High School CAP Exam takes place on Tuesday April 9, 2013 from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm.  If your school is not doing the exam please contact April Seeley (seeley@physics.utoronto.ca) to register for a spot to write at the University by Monday April 8, 2013 (3:00 pm).
  
• Letter to POPTOR students and future POPTOR students from Victoria College and former POPTOR student Chao Wang.
  
• The registration materials are available. 

• The POPTOR Weekend will be held on 10-12 May 2013 at St. George Campus University of Toronto.  Invitations should be out by the end of April 2013.
• The National Olympiad camp will take place in Vancouver, May 19 - 25, 2013.
  
• Excellent opportunity for summer studies in sciences at U of T:  http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/students/outreach/science-summer-camp
  

What is POPTOR?

POPTOR is a unique outreach program for Ontario high school students that permits them to take classes at the Department of Physics, University of Toronto and if desired to participate in the selection competition for the Canadian Physics National team.

Classes at the Department of Physics will take place on November 2012, January 2013 and March 2013.  Classes start at 10 am and finish at 6 pm.  Students will meet with professors of the research groups of the Department, take tutorials and lab sessions with graduate and undergraduate students, discuss the cutting edge discoveries in Physics and Science and have a lot of fun with new friends.

Every year, Canada conducts a search to identify the most capable high school science students. Five students are chosen to form the Canadian team to participate in the International Physics Olympiad, an annual competition among secondary school students.

The XLIV International Physics Olympiad will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark from July 7 - 15, 2013.  Here is their URL http://ipho2013.dk/.

The Department of Physics at the University of Toronto runs a eight-month preparation program for students in Ontario that helps science students 'gear up' for the national competition and provides all Ontario high-school students with an excellent and interesting opportunity to broaden their exposure to physics. In spite the fact that POPTOR offers the problems involving Grade 12 Physics and Mathematics, we also invite students from Grades 11 and 10 and encourage them to master the problems beyond their Physics curriculum. This experience will certainly help to advance in Science and probably to win the next year POPTOR competition.

Navigate our web site to find the problem sets assigned throughout the year, followed by a training and selection camp in May (POPTOR Weekend) at the University of Toronto. Since the Faculty of Arts and Science and the Department of Physics pay all the costs, participation in POPTOR is always free for the students.

 For more information on POPTOR,  please follow here.

The University of Toronto also runs a preparation program for the International Chemistry Olympiad.

POPTOR 2012/2013

Greetings from the whole POPTOR team! We are starting up again. You can find out how things work by looking at our registration materials page. If you're a student and don't have a liaison teacher or other adviser, please email us and we can register you directly.

Check out our current problem set page for information on the 2012/2013 problem sets. 

Start by having fun with these questions and ideas; come to our winter sessions with tutorials, labs, lectures and talks of our top researchers. Maybe you will be happy to feel yourself a real University student and researcher in our real university classes.

We invite POPTOR students with their own Physics problems to a supplementary contest. Authors of the best problems will be awarded regardless of their POPTOR results. The best problems of the previous years participants may be included in our problem sets. The 2007/2008 winner was Junjiajia (Bill) Long, who then won a gold medal at the 2008 IPhO.  For the list of previous years winners follow here.

Photos of Invitational Weekend Training & Selection Camps

Pictures from the 2013 May Weekend are available here.

Pictures from the 2012 Weekend are available here.

Pictures from the 2011 Weekend are available here.

You may also view the program of the 2006 Weekend and program of the 2005 Weekend.
If you see a problem, please let us know: poptor@physics.utoronto.ca
If you have a compliment, please let us know that, too!

Last revised: February 2013