NZYPT successfully held regional tournaments in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington on Saturday 7th March 2020. The National tournament planned for Saturday 21st March at ACG Parnell in Auckland had to be cancelled due to the covid-19 outbreak so there was no National Schools champion this year.
The top students from each region were able to audition for selection as New Zealand IYPT representatives via “Zoom” after each student carried out and additional IYPT problem investigation. This they did at home using basic apparatus and good old kiwi ingenuity!
The team of five highly talented physicists selected as New Zealand IYPT reps were :
1. Heather Harper – Onslow College, 2. Nathan Chen – Auckland Grammar School 3. Christine Li – Cristin School, 4. Hanbo Xie – Kings Coll. 5. Xavier Yin – St Kentigern Coll
The Covid-19 pandemic saw the cancellation of IYPT 2020 in Romania. With no international IYPT event possible the local organisers of NZYPT devised a new Online IYPT NZ event. The NZ team all gathered in Auckland and had a 3 day training camp held at Auckland Grammar School before the start of the event.
The tournament saw 7 international teams (Austria, Croatia, Georgia, Greece, NZ, Singapore and Thailand) compete in the event. (9 teams were signed up with 2 days to go before the event but covid-19 lockdown regulations in Romania and Iran meant the teams could not compete!).
When the final scores were tallied after 5 rounds the reigning IYPT world champions Singapore ended up winners (189.8 points), Austria were in 2nd place (176.4 points) closely followed by New Zealand in 3rd place (175.6 points). Of special mention was the fact that the New Zealand team managed to beat Singapore in their head to head fight during the tournament.
With IYPT 2021 looking uncertain our IYPT NZ online tournament is one we plan to organise again.