Photo from our left to right are

Sang Wook Kim – Auckland Grammar School
Carlos Aguilera Cortes – Auckland Grammar School
Byung Hoon Cho – Auckland Grammar School
Jack Tregidga – Wellington High School
Catherine Pot – Onslow College

Report from the International Young Physicists’ Tournament (IYPT 2016) held in Yekaterinburg (Russia) from the 26th June to 5th July 2016.

IYPT (The World Cup of Physics) 2016 – saw students from 29 countries around the world gather to debate their solutions to the 17 open ended problems set for the tournament. The students had carried out both theoretical and practical research to explain the phenomena. The New Zealand students had all participated in the NZYPT regional tournaments (Auckland or Wellington or Christchurch) and the national NZYPT tournament (Auckland) before gaining selection to the initial NZ squad and the final international New Zealand team. They qualified through competition between the other members of the squad and attended two training camps held in Auckland in the weeks before the tournament in Russia.

The final New Zealand team was composed of the following five students :
Byung Hoon Cho (Captain) Auckland Grammar School
Carlos Aguilera Cortes Auckland Grammar School
Sang Wook Kim Auckland Grammar School
Catherine Pot Onslow College
Jack Tregidga Wellington High School

The student team was accompanied by Gavin Jennings (Auckland Grammar School), Kent Hogan (Onslow College) and Sue Napier (Riccarton High School) who were all team mentors, trainers and acted as international judges throughout the New Zealand and international tournaments.

The IYPT has five rounds of competition between teams drawn by ballot. The students compete against other countries in structured debates called Physics Fights. Each fight has three components. A reporter giving his/her solution to the problem. An opponent to check and clarify the physics as well as point out the strengths and weaknesses of the report. A reviewer to prioritise the report and opposition and point out any errors they observe.

The performance of each component is marked by international judges and scaled (x3 for the report, x2 for the opposition and x1 for the review) to obtain a total score for each team.

FIGHT 1
The first round fight saw the NZ team drawn against the toughest of opposition – Singapore – who were the tournament champions last year.
The scores for NZ’s first fight were : Singapore 43.6 (winner) vs NZ 38.0 vs Austria 33.3
This placed the NZ team in 6th place with 38.0 points at the end of round 1.
Fight 1 details:
Report : Sang Wook Kim reported his solution to Ultrahydrophobic water scoring 18.0 points
Oppose : Carlos Aguilera Cortes opposed Austria’s solution to Rolling on a disc and scored 12.75 points
Review : Sang Wook Kim reviewed Singapore’s solution to Hot water fountain scoring 7.25 points

FIGHT 2
The 2nd round scores for NZ’s fight were NZ 37.9 (winner) vs UK 35.1 vs Iran 28.8 vs Canada 23.7
This placed the NZ team in 7th place overall with 75.9 points at the end of round 2.
Fight 2 details:
Report : Byung Hoon Cho presented his solution to Paper vice and scored 18.0 points
Oppose : Jack Tregidga scored 13.0 points in opposition to Canada’s solution to Super ball.
Review : Catherine Pot scored 6.9 points reviewing the UK’s solution to Water waves.

FIGHT 3
The 3rd round scores for NZ’s fight were NZ 37.7 (winner) vs Australia 30.7 vs USA 23.4
The NZ team were placed 6th with 113.6 points at the end of round 3.
Fight 3 details:
Report : Byung Hoon Cho scored 18.3 points with is solution to Invent yourself – a Random number generator
Oppose : Carlos Aguilera Cortes scored 12.6 points vs Australia’s solution to Magnetic train
Review : Jack Tregidga scored points 6.80 vs the USA’s solution to Sensitive flame.

FIGHT 4
The 4th round scores for NZ’s fight were Korea 39.1 (winner) vs Ukraine 37.3 vs New Zealand 32.7
The NZ team were placed 7th overall with 146.3 points at the end of round 4.
Fight 4 details:
Report : Carlos Aguilera Cortes presented his solution to Frisbee vortices and scored 12.9 points
Oppose : Jack Tregidga opposed Korea’s solution to Contactless calliper and scored 12.6 points
Review : Carlos Aguilera Cortes scored 7.2 points vs Ukraine’s Rolling on a disc.

FIGHT 5
The final round was going to be a hard one to win since the Swiss team were in 3rd place and heading for the world finals of the event 
The 5th and final round saw the team gain their highest score of the tournament to finish up in 7th place out of the 29 countries on 184.4 points. This makes them silver medals winners !
The 5th round scores were : New Zealand 38.1 (winner) vs Switzerland 37.4 vs Georgia 25.2
Fight 5 details:
Report Catherine Pot presented her solution to the Van der Pauw Method scoring 18.3 points
Oppose Jack Tregidga opposed Switzerland’s Light Rings solution and scored 12.6 points
Review Sang Wook Kim reviewed Georgia’s solution to Ultrahydrophobic Water scoring 7.2 points.

The placing for the top 10 teams at the end of the tournament were:
1. Singapore 2. Germany 3. Switzerland 4. Chinese Taipei 5. Korea
6. Slovakia 7. New Zealand 8. China 9. Hungary 10. Ukraine

This is another great result for the New Zealand team in the 29 country international tournament.
UK 11th and Australia 17th were other notable results 

The success of the team would not have been possible without the efforts of Kent Hogan, Sue Napier, Kerry Parker (Wellington High School) and Gavin Jennings in mentoring and supporting the practical work of the students over the last six months.

Report by Gavin Jennings
Chairman of NZYPT.