by Ariel Markus
I am currently sitting on an El Al flight, along with four peers and my Physics teacher, Mrs Chocron, on our way to compete in an international Physics competition to be held at the Weizmann Institute for Science. We have the unique opportunity to visit the institute, view some scientific experiments, and have our safe compete against over 50 other teams from all over the world. We have built a box, that is to be opened using Physics principles that teams from all over the 
world try to “crack”, and we try to “crack” theirs. Of course this was pretty difficult to explain to customs, especially when we had to unpack the whole thing because it didn’t fit in the x-ray machine. You never realize how hard it is to explain an electromagnet to somebody. “Uh, it’s a metal rod wrapped in wire… it’s like a magnet that needs electricity…y’know?” Anyway, the five of us — being myself, Yaakob Bendayan, Zak Kaplan, Shimmy Nauenberg and Zev Stochinsky have been working on building our safe since early December. And boy has it come a long way! From planning out the safe to spending hours at Home Depot trying to figure out what materials to buy, it has been a long, challenging five months with lots of hard work. But now the safe is ready and we’re on the plane, hoping that the bag handlers handled our big box kindly.
For me, this will be only the second time I’m visiting Israel, the last being nearly three years ago. This was still before entering high school, and after being in Bnei Akiva Schools for three years, my love for Israel has only grown, and I’m extremely excited to be going to Israel! As for now, I have no idea what to expect, but I know the trip will be truly amazing. Let’s do this!
