Undertaken by the College of Engineering, Peking University, the 9th National P.Y. Chou Mechanics Competition (Beijing Zone) took place at Peking University on May 19. Over 1200 contestants from many higher education institutions such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics sat the exam in Beijing.

Named after Mr. Zhou Peiyuan (P.Y. Chou), a former master in mechanics and president of Peking University, the National P.Y. Chou Mechanics Competition first took place in the 1980s, with proposal from Jike Wu, an emeritus professor of the College of Engineering. The competition is hosted by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and undertaken by the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Steering Committee for Mechanics Teaching in Colleges and Universities and the Zhou Peiyuan Foundation.

Over the years, the competition has experienced remarkable development and transformation, with expanding popularity and greater influence in mechanics teaching in universities and colleges in China. In the past decade, participants increased from 2700 to over 10,000. The organizing committee thus decided that it be conducted every two years so every undergraduate student may have the opportunity to take part in. Besides the original criteria in fundamental mechanics, experimental contest was added.

The College of Engineering has been actively organizing student participation in the competition, and many COE students have attained excellent results. In the 1st competition, faculty member Xiangdong He took first prize. Student Guohao Dai, Xiaohua Wang and Tianjing Cheng won second prize in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th competition respectively. Student Wenkai Liang, Xiaocheng Cui and Huan Shen took first prize in the 8th contest held in 2011.

For this year’s competition, over 50 COE students sat the preliminary examination. Universities with outstanding performance in the exam will team up to compete in the final contest in August.