PLANCKS UK & Ireland has been going on for a number of years now.
Check out what happened at the previous editions to see what fun you missed out on!
PLANCKS Dublin 2024
This year, we celebrated a decade of physics and fun with one of the largest ever in-person PLANCKS finals hosted
at Trinity College Dublin from 23rd to 27th May 2024. PLANCKS Dublin 2024 was attended by 47 teams and 22
observers, representing 34 countries worldwide.
The main event of the weekend was the four-hour exam, which allowed the teams to work to solve ten challenging
but fun physics problems collectively. Representing Germany, ‘D-A-CH-Schaden’, with a potentially record-breaking
score, came first in the competition. ‘Next to Next to Hartreetici’ and ‘Oachkatzlschwoaf’ representing Italy and
Germany, respectively, made up second and third place. It was great to see how all participants applied themselves in solving the exam questions, and everyone should be congratulated for the brilliant effort they made.
There were five amazing guest lectures put on throughout the weekend. The featured speakers were Dr Elizabeth
Mathews (DCU), Prof Sin´ead Ryan (TCD), Dr Miriam Rengel (Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research),
Dr Clara Nellist (University of Amsterdam, CERN), and Prof Seamus Davis (UCC, Oxford, Cornell). The attending
audiences were taken through research at the smallest scale of particle physics, to effective ways to visual quantum
matter, through to the large world of exoplanet research and outside pure physics to learn how to make STEM more
accessible through the development of sign language techniques. On Sunday morning, at the science showcase, there was also the opportunity for participants to take in research done by their fellow participants and local students. In addition, ten students presented talks at the start of the event on their interests and research projects.
PLANCKS Surrey 2024
The event was held from the 16th to the 18th February 2024 and was attended by 40 teams
representing 28 universities from the UK and Ireland. The highlight of the weekend was the
four-hour exam, which saw participants collaborating in teams to solve ten challenging physics
problems.
The ‘Oxonians Reloaded’ from the University of Oxford secured first place, followed closely by
the University of Cambridge’s ‘Plank’ and ‘Physocrates’ from Imperial College London in third
place. The winners and the top-scoring Irish team ‘The Not-so Grand Ensemble’ from Trinity
College Dublin will represent the UK and Ireland at the international finals, which will take
place at Trinity College Dublin this May. A special mention goes to the highest-ranked compos-
ite team, ‘3Math1Phys’ who placed tenth. Everyone deserves to be congratulated for the way
they solved the exam. It was impressive to see the different ways problems were attempted and
the creative solutions participants came up with.
The event also featured five outstanding speakers, including Prof Jim Al-Khalili, Dr Victoria
Fawcett, Prof Gavin Lotay, Dr Lisa Morrison, and William Dobbie. Attendees learned about
various topics, such as quantum biology, monster black holes and quasars, the advances in nu-
clear astrophysics, working at CERN, the skills required for a successful physics career, and the
development of international space law.
PLANCKS Liverpool 2023
The University of Liverpool hosted 56 teams representing 34 universities from the UK and Ireland, from Friday 17th to Sunday 19th of February 2023.
The ‘Oxonians’ from the University of Oxford secured first place, followed closely by ‘Dark Fermi Gang 3.0’ and ‘Bobo Piggas’ from the University of Cambridge. The winners went on to represent the UK and Ireland at the international finals, which took place at the University of Milan in May.
The event also featured five outstanding speakers, including Dr Brianna Heazlewood, Pascale Desmet, Prof Peter Weightman, Dr Nabil Iqbal, and IOP Merseyside Chair, Prof Andrew Newsam. Attendees learned about various topics, such as controlling ion-neutral reactions, dusty galaxies, the physics of life, holographic duality, outreach, and the skills required for a successful physics career. On Sunday morning, participants spoke with current PhD students about their experiences and current research.
PLANCKS Online 2022
The biggest ever PLANCKS took place online, from the 18th to the 20th of February 2022. It saw the coming together of students from 31 universities, representing every IOP region and nation in the UK and Ireland; 72 teams, 256 participants, and 20 observers-volunteers attended. For the first time, we opened registration to individuals and pairs who formed composite teams. 16 composite teams competed, with members who had never met each other before.
First place went to ‘Dark Fermi Gang 2.0’ from Cambridge, closely followed by ‘The Fences’ and ‘Hildabeasts’ both from Oxford. The winners represented the UK and Ireland at the international finals hosted by Munich in May. Everyone did incredibly well, and a special mention goes to one of our composite teams, ‘Team BR-GL’ who placed twelfth.
We were honoured to host five fantastic speakers: Prof Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell; Dr Sam Carr; Dr Jena Meinecke; Dr Caroline Shenton-Taylor; and Dr Francesca Chadha-Day. They gave us a real variety of talks over the weekend, and we learned lots about Ohm’s law, dark matter, pulsar discovery, and plasma, alongside some thought-provoking discussion of physics careers and the skills that are needed.
PLANCKS Kent 2021
The 2021 UK and Ireland Preliminaries took place over the weekend of the 19th to the 21st of February. It was originally intended to take place in person, however it was moved online due to the global pandemic.
Out of 47 teams, ‘The Fences’ from Oxford University came out on top, followed closely by two teams from Cambridge University, ‘The Dark Fermi Gang’ and ‘Corpus Physti’, who came second and third respectively. They went on to represent the UK and Ireland at the international finals being held virtually by Portugal in May.
Whilst this was a competition, the whole weekend was full of events for the participants and members of the public, the weekend hosted four main speakers give lectures: Prof Nigel Mason of Kent; Dr Hannah Price of Birmingham; Prof Ofer Lahav of UCL; and Prof Jim Al-Khalili of Surrey. Two unique events Kent put on over the weekend included a live tour and Q&A from Adam Powell and Dr April Cridland of CERN’s antimatter factory, and a ‘speed science’ event where: Dr Bradu, Prof Burchell, Dr Carr, Dr Kinnear, and Dr Ramos, from SPS, gave condensed presentations about who they are and what they do here at the University of Kent.
PLANCKS London 2020
International Final
The IOP had the privilege to host the international final in 2020. It was originally intended to be held in London, at the IOP HQ. The decision was made to move it to December and hold it as the 0th Online Edition. Together we had a varied programme with fantastic speakers, tried out new fun online socials and somehow managed to recreate the spirit of PLANCKS, which like all IAPS events, is about connecting diverse student communities together from around the world.
While PLANCKS has become an weekend of fun, at the heart of it is still the competition and that must have winners. Congratulations to the winning teams: Conserved Currents – University of Cambridge (1st), FYKOS – Charles University (2nd) and Pecconci Gang – University of Pisa (3rd).
We had talks from top academics including Prof Jon Butterworth who gave updates from the energy frontier, Dr Chris Hooley on condensed matter theory, a thrilling visual talk from Kevin Bowman on Apollo 13 and Prof Joanna Haigh spoke about climate physics.
We felt that this was an uplifting event with fun physics at its core and hope you all enjoyed it too. With all the difficulties this year has brought it, the combination of IAPS and IOP communities were able to come together and make the “0th Online Edition” of PLANCKS a great success and end the year on a positive note.
PLANCKS Edinburgh 2020
Edinburgh PLANCKS was the one that really kick-started the current progression of PLANCKS in the UK and Ireland. It was by far the biggest PLANCKS so far and really showed how much support there was around in the community.
The event was spread over the three days 21st-23rd February 2020, with 116 students travelling from 28 universities
in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. With the competition being organised by a committee of Edinburgh University students.
Four public talks from top-class speakers were held. The lecturers Dr. Kristel Torokoff (Edinburgh), Dr. Gavin Hesketh (UCL), Dr. Felix Flicker (Oxford) and Professor Martin Hendry (Glasgow Head of School) all drew crowds over the three
separate days, filling the lecture theatres with interested participants, students, and staff.
Congratulations to the First Place team “Merton”, from Oxford, Second Place “The Conserved Currents”,
from Cambridge and Third Place “The Worldsheet” from Imperial College London.
PLANCKS UK & Ireland was started in 2017, by a collaboration between the IOP London & South East Branch and students at Imperial College. The first edition had only three teams, taking place at Imperial. This quickly grew to 20 teams the following year, which took place at the old IOP HQ in Portland Place. The third IOP edition held in 2019 took place the brand new IOP HQ in Kings Cross and included the newly formed IOP Student Panel into it’s organisation.
PLANCKS UK & IRELAND 