Work alongside a whānau member or mentor to explore one or more of these seven problems. It’s not a competition. There are no prizes. It should be a fun way to learn together. IYPT is all about teamwork and discussion. About designing experiments and building them rather than assembling a kit set. About applying your results to improve the experiment.

We suggest you work with a technically minded adult so they can help keep you safe and find everything you need to build experiments and take measurements. They can also help think through your safety plan for each experiment.

BEFORE YOU START

• Discuss the problem together and consider ways to reproduce the phenomena it describes.
• You can check out the resources kit published by friends of IYPT that is full of videos and theory sources for all the 17 IYPT problems. You may need to scroll down a bit to find the one you are investigating. And be aware that most of these videos were not created with IYPT in mind. Some are adverts.
• Use wikipedia to understand any technical or scientific terms you encounter. Or ask your friendly AI. IYPT does not ban AI use. Just be sure to use it as a reserach tool not a substitute for your own thinking and experimenting.
• Think safety first. Be that for your own safety when experimenting or the safety of those arround you. This includes keeping your equipment safely when you are not there to watch it.
• follow the link in the problem name for
  • The full text of the IYPT problem.
  • A list of any specialist equipment you may need. These are things that you cannot easily make yourself that you may need to borrow or buy. It won’t include everyday items like scissors, sticky tape and rulers.
  • Safety first advice. This is specific advice about this specific experiment. It is not generic advice about being care ful with sharp objects and keeping small components away from small children, wear protective gear like safety specs when needed, etc.

The problems

Problem 1: Pinhole Sunglasses. Can a sheet full of tiny holes cut the glare and sharpen blurry vision?

Problem 2: Singing Capacitor. Why do some small electronic capacitors hum when you power them?

Problem 3: Y-Shaped Pendulum. When does the swinging weight draw looping patterns, like the one shown in red at the top?

Problem 4: Seeing Sound. Bounce a laser off a mirror attached to a vibrating membrane and watch sound turn into shapes. How do you change the patterns?

Problem 5: Sinking funnel. A heavy funnel bobs up and down as it sinks, and sometimes tips over. Why?

Problem 6: Air vortex. When does spinning a magnet in a jar of water produce a thin tube of air that reaches all the way down to the bottom of the jar?

Problem 7: Cold drink. How cold can you get a bottled or canned drink with ice and salt, and how fast?

Want to Compete in IYPT 2027?

After all your hard work, you may want to consider competing in the New Zealand IYPT competitions yourself. We hope you do!

It is no coincidence that these seven problems are those used in the New Zealand competitions for the 2027 International Young Physicists’ Tournament. Your experiments could be the start of the work your entry into either the schools’ team competition at the end of term 1 or even your video entry into the Team New Zealand (physics) selection process for IYPT in July.

If you do think you want to enter a New Zealand IYPT competition, you’ll have to do some theoretical work as well as experiments. Read the full instructions on how to investigate an IYPT problem to see what else you need to do to create an entry.