St Paul’s School Scoops First Place In International Safe Cracking Competition

A team of sixth form students from St Paul’s School has won first place in the 21st International Physics Safe Cracking Tournament which was held at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel on 5-6 April.

The team had received a travel grant to enable them to represent the UK in the International Tournament following their win at the Weizmann UK organised round of the competition which was held at Dulwich College in February.

They fought off tough competition in the finals from over 130 international teams from counties including Israel, USA, Canada, Panama, Romania, Angola and Slovenia.

Participating teams (aged 16-17) were tasked with designing a safe which could be cracked only by solving two physics riddles. Each team had to be able to open their own safe in under 5 minutes but needed to keep their opponents stumped for at least 10 minutes.
As well as taking 1st place in the overall competition, the St Paul’s School team came top in the following International Tournament categories:

• Most Uncrackable Safe
• Best Safe Crackers
• Most Popular Safe (Peer Vote)

The St Paul’s winning ‘Theme Park Safe’ team were joined in the competition by two other competing UK teams, from St Paul’s School and Dulwich College. The teams were awarded travel grants to attend the competition in Israel thanks to supporters of Weizmann UK.

Sheridan Gould, Executive Director of Weizmann UK said: “This tournament is a really unique way of encouraging creativity in the study of physics. We couldn’t be more thrilled that St Paul’s has taken first prize at this hugely prestigious International competition. It is also wonderful that they have had the opportunity to travel to Israel and experience first-hand the wonder of the Weizmann Institute. ”

Philip Deakin, a physics teacher at St Paul’s School who accompanied the teams to Israel said: “We are delighted by the result. It is all credit to the boys who put hours and hours of work into this. What makes the Weizmann Institute’s competition so special is the combination of the theoretical physics side with the practical skills needed to build the safe and a bit of creativity thrown in.”

If you would like any further information about the tournament, including details of how to enter next year, please contact scienceeducation@weizmann.org.uk

Published: April 06, 2016