Do you know what an elementary charge is? And that at the Joliot-Curie street a new subway station has been recently opened?

At the beginning of December, five students of the Physics and Mathematics Open Classroom visited Sofia where the Bulgarian Unity of physicists organizes a traditional Olympiad on experimental physics for high-grade school students. The aim of the Olympiad is to improve skills of students in experimental measurements and processing obtained data. Usually, participants of the competition carry out a famous experiment aimed at measuring fundamental physical values. The 6th Olympiad on experimental physics was dedicated to measuring electrical charge. More than 100 high-school students from Bulgaria, Makedonia, Serbia, Kazakhstan, and Russia participated in the competition. The Olympiad was organized by the Bulgarian Unity of Physicists, the Physical Department of the Sofia University and the Association of Physicists of Makedonia.

This year, participants of the Olympiad studied the Schottky noise emerging in the electric circuit of a photodetector irradiated by weak light signals. Depending on the age of participants, students were offered tasks of various difficulty levels: S, M or L. In the M category, Nikita Zhabitsky won the first place of the competition. In the older category L, Grigor Adamyan won the second place. Students prepared to the Olympiad in the “Experimental physics” project course headed by Irina G. Osipenkova.

The trip of students became possible thanks to the support of the JINR University Centre and the grant of Plenipotentiary Representative of Bulgaria at JINR.