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Winning formula puts Comet on U.S. physics team
(by Sue Hoffman - May 12, 2010)
Winning formula puts Comet on U.S. physics team
By SUE HOFFMAN
Solon High School junior Eugene Rabinovich, who came home with three gold medals from the state Science Olympiad last month, is one of 20 students nationwide and the sole student in Ohio to be selected for the U.S. physics team.
The students emerged through an exam process that began last January with approximately 3,300 students participating, according to the American Association of Physics Teachers. The selected students will continue to train for the exams and lab tests they'll face if chosen for the 41st International Physics Olympiad from July 17 to 25 in Zagreb, Croatia. Five team members and one alternate will represent the United States at the event, where more than 400 students from 90 nations compete.
For now, Eugene is getting ready for "training camp," which will be held from May 22 to 31 at the University of Maryland in College Park.
"It's basically a crash course of the first two years of college physics," he said. For Eugene, an aspiring physicist whose role model is his uncle, a physics teacher in Belarus, in Eastern Europe, that's a labor of love.
"I do Science Olympiad and Physics Olympiad because it's what I love to do," he said. "I imagine spending my whole life doing science. I do something I love and follow it all the way."
Eugene, the son of Edward Rabinovich and Marina Sokol, said that love started developing in middle school. "In seventh grade, I joined Science Olympiad and our team placed third at nationals." And so, the "fervor of Science Olympiad" began, he said.
His favorite event at that time was called the "Sounds of Music." For the tournament, Eugene said he created an instrument called the "shartar," which was a guitar "without a body. I added a Mylar balloon, which provided a resonating cavity."
He took second place in the nation in a team with classmate Lillian Sun, whose instrument combined chimes and a keyboard. The two students also had to take oral and written exams to win the silver medal. Lillian brought home two gold medals at the recent state Science Olympiad, where the high school and middle school teams took first place.
In ninth grade, Eugene was captain of the middle school team, which came in first place at the national tournament in Washington, D.C.
Eugene, who also participates in the school's Academic Challenge and Future Problem Solving teams, said about receiving the news, "I was honestly in shock."
Once the joy of being selected sank in, he realized there was an unfortunate conflict. The training camp starts during the national Science Olympiad, which takes place from May 19 to 23 at the University of Illinois' Urbana-Champaign campus.
"It was a really hard choice to make," Eugene said. "Science Olympiad is something to which I owe my success and my love of science." He said he appreciated that "everybody's supportive of my choice" to be part of the U.S. physics team.
Eugene thanked his science teacher, Ron Fabo, for sponsoring his candidacy for the U.S. Physics Team, proctoring his exams and providing him with a solid foundation in physics for the exams.
"This was all Eugene's," said Mr. Fabo, who taught him honors physics last year and Advanced Placement physics this year. "He initiated it. I sent in the paperwork and became his sponsor."
"There were two rounds of exams," Eugene said. In the first one in January, there were 25 multiple-choice questions to be answered in 75 minutes. After he was selected as one of the nation's some 300 semifinalists, he took a three-hour exam in March, which involved free response and problem solving.
"It was a prestigious group to begin with," Mr. Fabo said about the 3,300 students who took the first exam. "Right off the bat, you're competing against advanced students."
Regarding the final selection for the traveling U.S. Physics Team, Mr. Fabo said, "Eugene would have as good a chance as any. Besides being brilliant, he's very good at thinking on his feet. He excels at application of concepts and works very well with others in a small group or lab setting."
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