While many are focusing their attention on this year’s Summer Olympics in London, one Poolesville student is thinking only of the games in Estonia.

Poolesville’s Jake Koenig could be one of 20 students from the U.S. to represent the United States in this year’s International Physics Olympiad, to be held in Tartu, Estonia.

Koenig, 17, is a senior at Poolesville High School and was named a semifinalist to the U.S. Physics Olympics Team this year. He was chosen out of the 3,000 Maryland high school students who tried out for the team.

The Physics Olympiad is a 25-year-old competition among students from around the world. This year’s competition will take place in July.

Administered by the American Association of Physics Teachers, the qualifying exams test a student’s knowledge of relativity, quantum physics, and, Koenig’s favorite, mechanical physics.

He finished another round of qualifying tests in April and is awaiting results. Scores from that exam will be used to select the 20 members of the U.S. Physics Team, who represent the country in the international olympiad.

Koenig also is a tournament-level chess player and member of Poolesville’s Botball team, a club that builds robots for regional competitions. Botball teams compete to show off the functionality of their robots.

aruoff@gazette.net