A five-student team will compete in a tournament applying physics principles at the Weizmann Institute.

AJA Upper School students Shaun Regenbaum, Josh Bland, Josh Italiiander, Jonathan Bashary and Nittai Shiff are traveling to Israel from March 22 to 30 compete in the Shalhevet Freier International Physics Tournament at the Davidson Institute of Science Education at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot.

The five students will design, build and operate a locking mechanism for a box, making it a safe, through the use of principles of physics. The mechanism could use lasers, wires, magnets and other elements.

In the competition, being held March 28 and 29, each team will present its safe so that other teams can try to crack it within 10 minutes. The tournament goal is to decipher the physical principles used in other teams’ safes to crack them while your own safe is impenetrable.

The educational goal is to expand the basic understanding of scientific principles and encourage original thinking to use those principles.

Before the tournament, the AJA team of four seniors and one junior will spend Shabbat with host families in Yokneam, the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta’s partner region. The AJA students also will tour a high-tech company and visit a STEM-focused high school.