The New Zealand Young Physicists’ Tournament is a researched based Physics team competition open to all New Zealand students studying NCEA level 3 Physics, or another advanced Physics examination courses, in New Zealand.
The Tournament is organised by the New Zealand Young Physicists’ Trust, registered charity CC62496. Through the tournament, the Trust aims to:
- Encourage real world skills in critical thinking, problem solving, team work and genuine experimentation for Physics students
- Provide a fun physics competition between schools (“a bit like debating, but there’s a point to it”)
- Select and train a team to represent New Zealand at the International Young Physicists’ tournament. This will be in Lund, Sweden in July 2025.
ACCELERATE!
Read the second profile in our Alumni series – Donald White. Donald’s team were second at IYPT Croatia in 2008. Today he works in Australia for Q-CTRL, a quantum computing company.
Volunteer Judges – we need you!
The tournament can’t happen without judges. That’s one reason we ask all teams to bring their teacher/ manager with them – to act as a judge on the day. We need four judges in every match – two teachers and two other volunteers. Of course teachers never judge their own team.
Judges don’t need to be physics teachers. Parents are great and we always have some alumni and support from Auckland Uni. But all sorts of engineers, IT folk and medial imagers have joined in before. Full details about judging are here.
Resources for your Research
We are bringing together resources to support your teams research and presentation development. Most of these will be available through the NZYPT 2025 Resources Page.
But first our thanks to Jenkins Freshpac Systems of Tauranga for many meters of “garlic netting” for problem 2. Contact us if you want a length sent to you.
The 2025 New Zealand National Team Tournament will be held on Sat 22nd March 2025 at Auckland Grammar School
Teachers wishing to enter teams for the 2025 New Zealand Young Physicist Tournament can register their interest here. This adds you to our mailing list but does not commit you to entering the tournament.
Student’s wishing to be considered for the New Zealand Representative team should read the team selection process. It contains a link for individual expressions of interest if your school is not entering a team.
See the seven problem for the 2025 National Tournament here and the selection process for the NZ Representative team to go to Lund.
Individual students wanting to be considers for the NZ Rep team should read the selection process details and register their interest here even if they are in a team.
Further instructions and updates about the tournament will be published on this site and emailed to those teachers and students who have registered their interests. This will include venues, payment due dates, etc..
Fees for 2025: We are keeping this year’s fees the same as last. That is $135 per team of three students including their teacher/juror. This pays for the lunch and other refreshments provided for participants, room hire and administration. Student’s applying to be part of the rep team who are not in a school team need to pay an admin fee of $25. All fees need to be paid by February 22nd 2025.
Congratulations to our 2024 NZ Reps!
Congratulations to the NZ Representative team who came 13th of 38 national teams, winning bronze medals in Budapest, Hungary this July.
- Matthew McKee (captain) – Auckland Grammar School
- Alison Power – Onslow College
- Belle Yin – St Cuthbert’s College
- Charlie Li – ACG Parnell
- Emilio Grey – New Plymouth Boys High School
We wish them all great success with their tertiary studies.
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