UPC 2022 - Deflecting an Asteroid
Created: , Modified:Tags: Physics, Programming, Python
University Physics Competition (UPC) is an annual event that undergraduates can partake in to solve a physics problem and writing a formal paper within 48 hours. We were a proud team of three, receiving that sweet silver medal. Since COVID lockdowns has relaxed, there are no doodles here :(.
The paper
Retrospect
I believed this was the UPC that perfectly occured after I finished my Mechanics Course regarding orbits, etc. Because of that I got to immediately use them here. I’d like to say that I can see the improvement within the writings compared to previous UPCs.
We had fun thinking of ways to hit an asteroid with rockets. Since hitting it perpendicular to its velocity was kind of an obvious answer, we immediately chose that as our path and it seems like so did the other gold medalist. Thanks to this, I got to compare what we were lacking. It seems that we didn’t explore other potential solutions and we also didn’t explore further into what happens after hitting the asteroid (fragments).
I guess solving the problem was the easy part. I’ve got to improve on my exploration.