During the summer holidays, I flew to Kutaisi, Georgia, with my four teammates and our leaders, to represent the UK in the International Olympiad of Astronomy and Astrophysics. The competition itself took place in mid-August, but leading up to that we had two training camps at Oxford, one in April (see issue 566) and one the week before the competition in August.
During the August training camp, we consolidated all of the material we had already learnt on our own during the summer holidays. We also did the 2019 papers as mock exams and made our own sundials. On Thursday, we spent an hour punting on the gorgeous River Cherwell, before travelling to Marlborough to practise using telescopes at the Blackett observatory, with Sir Charles Barclay. We used the 10” Cooke telescope to observe Jupiter and its moons, Saturn, Mars, Uranus, and even Vesta. We also used smaller 6” Newtonian telescopes to look at some of the Messier objects, including the brightest, M31, Andromeda Galaxy. Following a late night (we stayed up until 2.30am!), we slept in the next morning before returning to Oxford and back home for a night.
The next day, on Saturday, we met up at Heathrow Airport for our flight to Tbilisi, via Istanbul. Arriving at 4am local time, we then had a four-hour drive to Kutaisi International University where we were staying for the week. We spent most of Sunday catching up on our sleep before attending the Opening Ceremony in the Opera Theatre.
Our first exam was the five-hour theory paper which we sat on Tuesday, followed by telescope practice in the evening. We then had a four-hour Data Analysis paper on Thursday and our Daytime Observation exam on Friday. We were unfortunately not able to do the Night Observation Rounds on the planned Wednesday and Thursday nights due to cloud coverage, so the practical telescope aspect was tested during the Daytime observation. In addition to the exams, we had three days of excursions when we visited the country. On Monday, we went to the Prometheus Caves in the Caucasus mountains. On Wednesday, we visited the Sataplia Nature Reserve, where we saw fossilised dinosaur footprints, followed by another smaller cave. Finally, on Saturday, once all the exams were finished, we went to the west of the country. We first visited Shekvetili Park Zoo, then went to Miniature park, which had small replicas of many of the most well-known buildings in the country. To end the day, we went to a beach on the coast of the Black Sea. We spent over two hours in the water and on the sand, and we also got to see the sun set over the sea.
To end the week, on Sunday, we attended the Closing Ceremony, where we were presented with our medals. Overall the British Team got three silver and two bronze medals, which we were quite proud of.
Experiencing Georgian culture was really cool: we learnt to eat khinkali, Georgian dumplings, in a local restaurant and there are magnificent landscapes with the picturesque Caucasus mountains in the background.
My favourite part of the trip was meeting so many people, both from Georgia and also the rest of the world. Since we were without electronics for the week, we really bonded over card games, even with people who didn’t speak the same language as us. Even though we were competing against each other, the atmosphere was really friendly and I am still in contact with some of the people I met.
Article by Marc