N-trophy is a competition for students of middle schools. The competition is full of experiments and exploration in the unique environment of regional universities. The competition fields were biology, chemistry, physics and logic. Three-member teams from the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic had to solve various tasks. The tasks are comparable to those approached by research teams. This year N-trophy was organized for the students from South Moravia Moravian Slezsko, Trnava and Žilina districts. Interdisciplinary competition is one of the key activities of the project “Support of talents in natural science and technical fields in the Slovak- Czech border area.” It is under the Operation programme of cross-border cooperation between Slovak Republic – Czech Republic 2007-2013, with the project code: ITMS 22410320042.
On the 1st of March 2014 the regional round of N-trophy at the Faculty of Materials Science and Technology STU in Trnava was organized at the Institute of Safety, Environment and Quality. It was organized together with the Trnava self-governing district. Twelve three-member teams from the Trnava district participated in total. The subjects were supervised by the employees of the institute – Logic: Ing. Lenka Blinová, PhD., Ing. Alica Bartošová, Ing. Ondrej Tatarka, Ing. Tomáš Štefko and Ing. Jozef Horváth; Biology: RNDr. Maroš Sirotiak, PhD., Ing. Jaroslav Zigo and Ing. Michal Belčík; Physics: Ing. Jozef Fiala, PhD., Ing. Martin Pastier and Ing. Marcel Kuracina; Chemistry: Ing. Anna Michalíková, CSc., Ing. Mária Draxlerová, Adriana Peterková and Bc. Janka Drhová took care of all important services.
“At the beginning you do not know nearly anything. You can see only a system which you do not know; you do not know its operation, its reactions and often where it begins and where it finishes. And your time is counting down.... If your system is an atom, universe, cell, chemical alloy or for example weather, you try to find valid rules. You always have questions, you disprove hypothesis, you specify measurement and you search for relations. The difference between N‑trophy and real research? Research can last sometimes centuries. In the competition N‑trophy the students had only a few hours....”
We thank everybody who participated in the organization and all students.
More information about competition N-trophy4 are on http://www.ntrophy.cz
Translation: Jana Green