Independent STEM Olympiad Training Practice
ProjectAdvanced Physics Olympiad Training Camps with Original IPhO-Level Problem Design
- Delivered long-term IPhO-level physics instruction through online and offline training camps, coaching students in mechanics, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, optics, modern physics, and advanced mathematical methods for olympiad problem solving
- Trained multiple students for the United States Physics Olympiad pathway, helping students convert advanced theory into competition-ready derivations, solution structures, and time-constrained reasoning habits
- Designed more than 100 original high-difficulty physics problems, moving beyond standard exercise patterns toward problems requiring original setup, layered constraints, and multi-stage analytical execution
- Integrated a broad graduate-level mathematical toolkit into traditional physics settings, drawing on differential equations, mathematical analysis, numerical analysis, variational methods, perturbation techniques, asymptotic analysis, eigenvalue problems, Green’s functions, Fourier and Laplace transforms, complex analysis, optimization, discrete-to-continuous limits, and boundary-case reasoning to increase conceptual depth and novelty
- Representative example: designed a graduate-level monotone-staircase gravity problem in a right-triangle domain, requiring energy-based modeling, constrained path analysis, extremal-time comparison, proof of non-attainment, supremum construction, and harmonic-number asymptotics for a staircase family approaching the limiting bound
- Built problems with full reference solutions and scoring rubrics, emphasizing not only final numerical answers but also graduate-level reasoning standards, including energy methods, admissibility constraints, variational intuition, limiting constructions, inequality bounds, asymptotic expansions, and rigorous proof of non-attainment
- Converted personal olympiad training experience into a reusable teaching framework, combining physical intuition, graduate-level theoretical physics, and advanced mathematical technique into structured training materials for high-performing STEM students