An der am Freitag, den 20. Mai 2022 stattfindenden Langen Nacht der Forschung wird heuer erstmals auch das BRG Steyr Michaelerplatz teilnehmen. Dabei wird es an unserem Standort vier Stationen zu bestaunen, aber auch zum Mitmachen geben:

• Lust auf Experimente?
• Lust auf Wissenschaft?
• Wie kann man Lego-Mindstorms-Roboter bauen und programmieren?
• Wie wird ein Podcast produziert?

Bei diesen Stationen zeigen wir interessierten Zuseher*innen spannende Experimente aus Physik und Chemie, geben aber auch Einblicke in ausgezeichnete Vorwissenschaftliche Arbeiten der Maturant*innen sowie unseren ScienceBlog. In einem weiteren Raum wird es für die Besucher*innen die Möglichkeit geben, Lego-Mindstorms-Roboter selbst zu bauen und einfache Programme mithilfe einer grafikbasierten Software zu erstellen. Zusätzlich werden wir das junge Medium Podcast präsentieren und Audio-Projekte unserer Schule zum Anhören aufbereiten.

Die Veranstaltung wird an unserem Schulstandort (Michaelerplatz 6, 4400 Steyr) stattfinden und von 17:00 bis 23:00 Uhr dauern (letzter Einlass: 22:00 Uhr).
Unser Schulgebäude kann barrierefrei auch mit Kinderwägen und Rollstühlen betreten werden, es stehen Sanitäranlagen zur Verfügung.

Genauere Informationen sind in der Beschreibung unseres Ausstellungsstandorts auf der Webseite der Langen Nacht der Forschung zu finden.

Seien Sie gespannt, was wir für Sie vorbereitet haben – wir freuen uns auf Ihren Besuch!

by Michael Himmelbauer

As every year, a Chemistry Olympics course leaded by Mr. Nowitzki was held in school year 2021/2022 at our school. Every second Friday, six enthusiastic and highly curious students met up in the Chemistry room for solving theoretical tasks and doing interesting experiments to find out more about the laws of nature that determine our everyday life.

For the first time since the outbreak of the Corona Pandemic, the Upper Austrian regional competition, for many Olympionics the highlight of the year, could take place in presence after it had to be carried out as an online competition in 2020 and 2021, especially the practical tasks were attracting after a long period of studying at home.

This year, it was considered to take place in Braunau from Tuesday, April 26^th till Thursday, April 28^th, 2022. That is why our school’s participants Florian Nowitzki (7a), Elias Leitinger (7b), Jonas Untersperger (7a) and Michael Himmelbauer (7a) took the train to Braunau Tuesday morning. After the arrival, they were picked up by a bus and were brought to their accommodation, the local boarding school. The same afternoon, they had the opportunity to listen to a highly interesting interactive presentation of the spokesman of AMAG, a local Aluminum factory, about the worldwide enterprise’s values and strategies to succeed. Subsequently, a guided tour that gave insights into the different steps of production to some of the buildings was offered to the group of 44 students.

The next morning after having breakfast, they were brought to the high school building where the competition was held. Within a working time of three hours, 20 pages of theoretical tasks had to be solved with the help of formula sheets, a calculator and of course the periodic table of elements. In it, the reaction equation of a coin made of Copper with nitric acid had to be examined as well as organic tasks about the structure of different molecules consisting of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.

The second part, the practical experiments, was carried out in the afternoon, the ingredients of seven different liquids had to be worked out and the concentration of Zinc and Magnesium ions had to be calculated by investigating different reactions that cause a change of the liquid’s color inside the beaker when a given substance drops into the unknown one. In the evening, our school’s contestants enjoyed playing cards and discussing about the challenging, but fascinating exercises that required focusing and recalling all scientifical knowledge taught in the preparation courses throughout the entire school year.

On Thursday, a festive awarding ceremony including musical performances and speeches of political and economic representatives was held in Braunau’s event location. At the end of it, all participants got their well-deserved certificates as well as presents like a cup, pens, books and t-shirts. Florian Nowitzki (7a) won the seventh price, Elias Leitinger (7b) placed eighth, Jonas Untersperger (7a) became 13^th, Michael Himmelbauer (7a) achieved the 14^thplace.

written by Michael Himmelbauer

Despite the ongoing Corona virus pandemic, a Physics Olympics course leaded by Mr. Haberbauer could take place in school year 2021/2022 in our school.

After a few days of searching for new, young and enthusiastic participants, we could finally start at the beginning of October 2021 with eleven curious scientists to meet up every second Friday afternoon from a quarter to two to half past four in the Physics room. During the voluntary homeschooling in December, the students were connected via Microsoft Teams video meetings in order to collaborate in remote as effectively as possible.

On the one hand, the participants dealt with several more or less difficult exercises out of the different physical disciplines. In addition to the theory, they conducted and did experiments, but also had a look at the processes behind that explain different usual and unusual phenomena according to our slogan „Everything happens for a reason, and that reason is usually Physics.“. 

In order not to overtax our new and rather unexperienced physicists from fifth grade, a wide range of tasks with different levels of difficulties were offered to choose between. While the younger participants tried to solve former course competitions, their elder colleagues had a look at the regional and countrywide contests.

As every year, the Physics Olympics course competition on Friday before the half-term holidays (February 18th, 2022) was the conclusion of an amazing and highly interesting course. In it, the competitors had to solve tasks out of the categories Mechanics, Electricity and Optics, some even had the opportunity to find out the spring constant of a rubber ring by measuring the weight of the metal cylinders and the diameter of the expanded rubber ring. After Mr. Haberbauer had evaluated the exams, he could happily announce that Michael Himmelbauer (7a, first place), Jonas Untersperger (7a, second place) and Elias Leitinger (7b, third place) had qualified for the regional competition of Upper Austria. The other candidates Sarah Diregger (6a), Florian Nowitzki (7a), Oliver Kovacs (7b), Evelyn Herrmann (5b) and Moritz Kolb (5b) could achieve respectable results as well.

After the well-deserved half-term holidays with more or less private preparation at home, the three students (mentioned above) took part in the Upper Austrian Physics Olympics regional competition on Tuesday, March 1st, 2022. Due to the Corona pandemic, it had to take place in the course schools again (as the year before) as a replacement for the traditional event in Linz. The tasks and materials for the experiment were sent to the schools in advance. Within a worktime of four hours, the candidates had to solve challenging exercises out of the disciplines Mechanics (opening a door with the help of a rope), Electricity (generating voltage by using solar panels) and Optics (lenses, bar grid), the experiment was out of the category Electricity. By charging and discharging, the capacity of a capacitor had to be calculated. Furthermore, a voltage was produced in a rather tiny solar panel with the help of a little LED, its effects on the flow had to be investigated.

After a stressful afternoon of correcting the calculations and submitting the results to the regional coordinator in Linz, we happily received a message that Michael Himmelbauer (7a) won a first prize, that is why he qualified for the countrywide competition 1 on March 14th, 2022, Elias Leitinger (7b) reached a third prize, Jonas Untersperger (7a) could achieve a respectable ranking as well.

In representation for all participants, I would like to thank Mr. Haberbauer for his patience and efforts throughout an exhausting, but also fascinating year of Physics Olympics!

written by Michael Himmelbauer

First of all: A warm welcome to the recently introduced category „ScienceNews“!

Due to the wide range of scientific news provided by different more or less serious webpages where several authors with a different level of knowledge and experience can publish stories they consider to be worth reading them, we decided to set up a new platform as a subpage of the ScienceBlog that we called „ScienceNews“.

On that platform, we would like to release articles that explain current scientific events (for instance the start of a new innovative rocket to discover the planet Mars or a breakthrough in reusing emitted warmth to slow down the climate change) in a way that not only experts, but also „common“ people that do not have any special pre-knowledge are able to understand and follow the most significant points. For illustration, we will attach some photos and graphics that deepen the understanding of the processes in the background (which are often even more interesting than the event itself) that enable the readers to get curious and make them wanting to find out more. Therefore, we will give credit to the sources and add some links referring to additional information at the ending of each post.

As we have got a few motivated and enthusiastic writers, our articles will be provided either in English or in German.

In case you have got ideas or improvements, we are happy to receive a message in order to fulfill our aspiration of getting better every day according to our slogan „You are always a student, never a master. You have to keep moving forward.“ (Conrad Hall, photographer and filmmaker).

We hope you appreciate our well-researched articles as much as we do. Enjoy reading them!

written by Michael Himmelbauer (in representation for the whole ScienceBlog team)