Regulations of the New Zealand Young Physicists’ Tournament
And Qualification for New Zealand representation in the International Young Physicists’ Tournament in 2025
I. International Young Physicists’ Tournament,
The International Young Physicists’ Tournament (IYPT) is a competition among teams of secondary school students from around the world. It takes place in late June or early July. Senior students test their ability to solve complicated scientific problems, present their solutions concisely and then defend them in scientific discussions with other teams, called Physics Fights.
The New Zealand Young Physicists’ Trust (The Trust) is the IYPT licence holder in New Zealand and the only organisation authorised to enter a New Zealand Team to IYPT. In IYPT terms it is teh National Organising Committee, or NOC It also runs the New Zealand Young Physicists’ Tournament, (the NZ tournament, in a format based on IYPT and using that years’ IYPT research problems.
The NZ tournament is open to all secondary school students either in school teams or as individuals. Students are typically in Year 13 and studying for NZCA level 3 or similar physics qualification. Their research may also be reused as exam practical work providing they acknowledge the origin of the research problem as NZYPT
NZYPT call our competition rounds “Physics Matches”, PM, as they are not as aggressive as a fight! But this is only a name change – the rules remain the same.
Students unable to be part of a team, for any reason, may enter as individuals so they can be considered for selection into the national squad.
II. The problems of the IYPT
The 17 problems for the year are formulated by the International Organizing Committee (IOC) of IYPT and sent to the participating countries not later than in October. The Trust selects 7 of these problems to be used in the the NZ tournament. These 7 problems are published on this, the New Zealand Young Physicists’ Trust website, www.iypt.org.nz
III. The participants of the NZYPT
1. Entries
The NZ Tournament and IYPT area team events and students are encouraged to enter as teams where possible.
Any school in New Zealand can enter up to two teams into The NZ tournament prior to the published deadline. In cases where a school does not have enough suitable students; students may enter individually or, schools may, at the discretion of the Trust, combine to form a team.
An individual competition is available for students who cannot participate in a team for any reason. This involves making a video about their research in the format of a PM report. This format is explained below.
Teachers are asked to fill out an expression of interest for their students. This is the first step towards an entry and should be made as soon as possible in the second half of term 3. ONLY teachers who have expressed an interest for their students will receive the follow up emails with further instructions and information about the tournament including completing their entry, venue details, fees, deadlines, video instructions and tournament news. It is assumed that teachers will share this information with their participating students.
2. Entry Fee
The entry fee is $135 per team in 2025. This incudes room hire, meals and snacks throughout the day for the three student team and their Team Leader. Travel costs are additional to this and should be met by the school and/or students.
The entry fee for individual students ONLY entering as individuals by video $25 in 2025. Individuals part of a team that competes in the NZ tournament do not need to pay this fee.
At the discretion of the NOC, tournament fees may be reduced or waived in cases of significant hardship. Please contact the Trust if you wish to discuss this.
3. Late entries
A deadline for fees and receiving your student’s details are published every year. These are usually about a month before the tournament in order to give the organising committee time to print the programme etc. Schools must pay their fee by the deadline to obtain entry to the tournament.
4. The membership of the teams
An NZYPT team is composed of three secondary school students. The composition of the team cannot be changed during the tournament. The team is headed by a captain who is the official representative of the team during the NZ tournament.
Between them, the team should aim to investigate at least five problems to give them sufficient problems to present when challenged.
5. Team Leaders
The team is accompanied by a teacher who is the team leader. All teams must supply at least one teacher to act as a juror throughout the NZ Tournament. The team leader can be, but need not be, their team’s juror. The competition cannot take place without sufficient jurors. Consequently, Any team who cannot bring at least one juror must notify the regional organizers to see if it is possible for the team to compete. The juror does not have to be a physics teacher but must be someone with a Physics based degree OR a previous student participant of IYPT.
6. Regional and National Finals
In 2025 NZYPT is a single, national competition held on March 22nd in Auckland. No regional rounds will be held.
IV. The Jury
A Jury for every PM is nominated and organized by the Trust. The jurors consist of university academics, school physics teachers, parents and supporters of NZYPT with relevant physics or engineering degrees . The team leader from each team is automatically included as a Juror unless the school has supplied an alternative. Where possible team leaders should not be judging their own team and should not grade the same team more than twice.
V. The Physics Match regulations
In the course of a PM the members of a team may communicate freely with each other as long as they do not disturb the match or the jury.
Before the beginning of a PM, the Jury and the teams are introduced to each other.
Two teams participate in a PM. Each PM is held in it’s own room with only the participating teams and their jury present. The two teams take turns to present and oppose. Occasionally, entry number require three teams in one room who then compete in a round robin.
VI. The team roles in a Physics Match
Each team will have either a reporter or an opponent for every leg of the PM
The Reporter presents the teams solution to the problem, drawing attention to the main physical ideas, experimental results and conclusions. Standard devices for presentation are whiteboard and computer data show projector. For further devices the teams should consult the organizers. Videos and live demonstrations of the experiments are encouraged within the time limits,
The Opponent puts questions to the Reporter and critiques their report, pointing to possible inaccuracy and errors in the understanding of the problem and in the proposed solution. The Opponent analyses BOTH the advantages and drawbacks of the Reporter’s physics solution (major part) and the clarity of their presentation (minor part). NB: The discussion of the Opponent should not become a presentation of his/her own solution. The opposition report may start with a presentation using a data projector and continue in the discussion phase with the use of diagrams and calculations on the whiteboard.
There will be a minimum of two legs in a PM so that each team takes a turn at being the Reporter and the Opponent. During any one PM only one member of each team takes the floor as Reporter or Opponent. Other members of the team will help with the presentation technically in the allotted preparation times, (cf. section vii of the regulations) . A competition (heats and final), will have three PM rounds so that every student should get the chance to participate in at least one PM.
VII. Physics Match Timings
Physics matches are very structured and use strict timings to balance the competition and keep it to a reasonable timescale. These PM timings are taken from the international competition rules.
there are strictly timed steps outlined here IN MINUTES. This is a maximum time and the jury will stop any step that exceeds it’s allotted time by more than a few seconds.
Step 1 – Problem selection (see details in section VIII)
The Opponent challenges the Reporter for the problem . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Reporter accepts or rejects the challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Step 2 – The Report (up to 17 minutes in total, only 12 for the report)
Preparation of the Reporter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Presentation of the report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Step 3 – The Opposition (19 minutes in total)
The Opponent asks the reporters a few clarifying questions . . . . . 2
Preparation of the Opponent to present summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Opponent presents their observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . max 4
before a discussion between the Reporter and the Opponent . . . . ..max 10
Step 4 – Jury questions and scoring
The Jury asks additional questions of both teams.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Grading and collection of scores from the jury. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
Ideally, there will be no break between the two legs of a PM.
VIII. The rules of problem-challenge and rejection
1. The problems presented by each team in a PM must be different.
The Opponent may challenge the Reporter on any problem with the exception of problems that:
a) was rejected by the Reporter earlier; or
b) was presented by the Reporter earlier; or
c) was opposed by the Opponent earlier; or
d) was presented by the Opponent earlier.
If there are no problems left to challenge, the bans d), c), b), a) are successively removed these restrictions, in reverse order, until a problem is selected.
Across all PMs in a competition, the Reporter may reject the challenge of two different problems in total without penalty. For every subsequent rejection, the Reporter’s mark for the leg is decreased by a factor of 0.2. This reduction is cumulative and continues through any following PMs. So that if four problems are rejected, the teams’ mark is reduced by a factor of 0.4
IX. The grading
After each Stage the Jury grades the teams, taking into account all presentations of the members of the team, questions and answers to the questions, and participation in the discussion. Each Jury member shows integer marks from 1 to 10.
The highest and lowest marks from the jury are averaged to form one mark. The team mark will be the mean of the combined high/low mark and the other judges marks.
The mean mark is then multiplied by 3 for the reporter and 2 for the Opponent, to give the team’s points for that PM. This ensures that research and presentation is given predominance in the scoring.
The winning team will have the greatest number of points after three rounds of PM. The members of that team are automatically offered places in the New Zealand training squad.
X. Individual entries
Individual students who cannot take part in a team may enter by submitting a 12 minute video presentation of one problem. Submissions must be made before the due date and time or they will not be considered. The deadline will be 48 to 24 hours before the team competition. Submitted videos are not made public.
Every video received by the deadline will be viewed by the Trust’s National Selection Committee, (NSC), who will select the strongest entries for follow up and potential selection for the New Zealand squad.
XI IYPT New Zealand squad selection
The National Selection Committee (NSC) selects the NZ squad of top students from the NZYPT competition and from the national entry of videos submitted online. Before joining the squad, students MUST verbally confirm their eligibility for the International tournament.
Each squad member will be allocated \the same, new IYPT problem from the international problems; one that was NOT used in the NZ tournament They will have a two to three weeks to investigate their allocated problem before presenting their report to the NSC.
NB: The solution is not expected to be completed in full due to the very tight time allowed. The NSC also know that some problems prove more challenging than others. This does not disadvantage squad members with the more difficult problems who show that they understand the difficulties and have tackled them in a sound research manner informed by appropriate physics theories.
All squad members will receive feedback on their research. The NSC, having evaluated each squad members research, will chose five students from the squad to be New Zealand representative in IYPT. Before being confirmed as a Representative team member, students and their parents MUST confirm their eligibility and availability for the international competition. They and their parents sign contractual agreements that include commitments that the student
- is currently in high school in New Zealand (Tertiary students are not permitted to compete in IYPT)
- is a New Zealand citizens or resident
- will attend all the training camps and the international tournament
- Will pay any necessary contribution to travel costs to and from IYPT
- will not bring the Trust or the NZ team into disreput
XII. The status of the regulations of NZYPT
These regulations are established by the Trust in accordance with IYPT regulations. Only teh Trust may amend them.
Revised for the 2025 NZYPT National Tournament being held on 22nd March 2025
If these rules are updated or clarified before the 2025 tournament, all teachers who have submitted an expression of interest will be informed.