This event is for high school students and teachers, although I imagine you can attend if you wish. Gere are the details from a February 26, 2026 University of British Columbia (UBC) announcement (also received via email),
More than 1,000 high school students and teachers from across B.C. will participate in the 48th annual [emphasis mine] UBC Physics Olympics, showcasing their physics knowledge, creativity, and innovation through a series of competitions.
Eighty-three student teams will compete in six events designed to highlight their understanding of scientific concepts, problem-solving skills and collaborative abilities, including:
- projectile launchers that use a swinging pendulum to launch a hacky sack as far as possible
- pole climbers, which will carry the team’s iPhone up and down a pole in less than a minute
- mystery labs (hints: “buoyancy” and “cratering”)
- “Quizzics”, a physics quiz show
- Fermi questions, inspired by the great 20th-century physicist Enrico Fermi, where students try to answer order-of-magnitude questions, such as “What is the total mass of the students competing in the Physics Olympics today?”
These activities aim to help students experience physics as both exciting and relevant to everyday life, while encouraging teamwork, creativity and scientific thinking.
The UBC Physics Olympics is one of the largest and longest-running high school physics competitions of its kind in North America. The event is organized by faculty, staff and students from the UBC department of physics and astronomy and the department of curriculum and pedagogy, with support from graduate and undergraduate volunteers—many of whom are former Physics Olympics participants.
Event: 48th annual UBC Physics Olympics
Date/Time: Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026, from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m., awards from
4:20 p.m.
There’s a bit more information on the Welcome to the UBC Physics Olympics site, Note: Links have been removed,
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Physics Facility Tours
Part of the fun of coming to UBC from different parts of the province is to see a bit of UBC campus, including some of our physics & astronomy research facilities. As in previous years, we will be organizing tours:
- TRIUMF: tour of Canada’s particle accelerator!
- Quantum Matter Institute: Quantum lab tour – see amazing equipment and learn about the future of quantum materials!
- PHAS [Physics & Astronomy]: CHIME [Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment] lab: learn about CHIME, Canada’s radio telescope.
To get more information about tours, please contact outreach@phas.ubc.ca.
About the Physics Olympics
Every year teams from high schools across British Columbia compete in six physics & astronomy events. The team with the highest overall score receives a trophy for their school, as well as other awards. Up to five students from a team can participate in any given event, and different students from a team can participate in different events. As such, teams may have between 1 and 30 students.
While every school team must have a designated coach on the day of the competition, we do not require that the coach be the physics teacher for the school. Any responsible adult may serve as the designated coach, including teachers, parents, administrators, or friends.
Details concerning the logistics of the event are included in the rule book. School teams arrive at the lobby of the Hennings Building around 8:30 am to register, receive the envelope with all the information, and store the pre-builds. The schedule runs from 9am-5pm (approximately). UBC Physics Olympics takes place in the following buildings: Hennings, Hebb, and IRC (Woodward). These buildings can be located on UBC map: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index.php .
The interactive map for wayfinding at UBC can be found here: http://www.maps.ubc.ca/PROD/index.php
To see past projects please see the Results page for videos!
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Hard to tell if the public is welcome but I imagine if you have children old enough to be interested (but not yet able to participate) previewing UBC’s 2026 Physics Olympics would be welcome.