Regulations of the New Zealand Young Physicists’ Tournament and Qualification for New Zealand representation in the International Young Physicists’ Tournament in 2026

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 for IYPT in New Zealand and the only organisation authorised to enter a New Zealand Team to IYPT. In IYPT terms the Trust is the NZ National Organising Committee, or NOC.

The Trust also runs the New Zealand Young Physicists’ Tournament, in a format based on IYPT and using that years’ IYPT research problems. Two separate competition paths and students may choose one or both as suits their personal circumstances.

• Path 1 – selection for the international representative team
• Path 2 – participation in the national tournament for school teams

Both paths are 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, however there is no lower age limit. The International team path can only be completed by NZ residents or permanent residents attending a NZ recognised school. this can be state, private, registered home schooled or Te Kura.

Students may reuse their work on IYPT problems to support their examination portfolios providing they acknowledge the origin of the research problem as NZYPT

NZYPT call our competition rounds “Physics Matches”, physics match, 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 for the New Zealand representative team.

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 in July after that years International Tournament. The Trust selects 7 of these problems to be used in the NZ tournaments. These 7 problems are published on this, the New Zealand Young Physicists’ Trust website, www.iypt.org.nz

III. The participants of the NZYPT Schools’ Tournament

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.

Participation in the Schools’ Tournament does not

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 inc GST per team in 2026. This includes room hire, meals and snacks throughout the two-day event 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.

At the discretion of the Trust, tournament fees may be reduced or waived in cases of significant hardship or to encourage participation from new schools and provinces. Please contact the Trust if you wish to discuss these possibilities.

3. Late entries

A deadline for fees and receiving your student’s details are published every year. 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 recent student participant of IYPT who still uses physics in their work/study

6. Regional and National Finals

In 2026 The schools’ tournament is a single, national competition held over two days, March 21^st and March 22^nd in Auckland. No regional rounds will be held. Teams from outside of Auckland need to arrange their own transport to, and accommodation in, Auckland.

IV. The Jury

A Jury for every physics match is organized by the Trust. The jurors consist of independent volunteer physicists’ and the teachers accompanying a team in roughly a 50:50 ratio. Ideally there should be six jurors assessing every match, but this is not always possible. Jurors must be qualified with a minimum of.

1. A physics bachelor’s degree, (or higher)  in physics or physics reliant discipline, or
2. an alumnus undergraduate student studying a physics or physics reliant discipline, or
3. Be currently working or studying in physics or a physics reliant discipline.

Physics related disciplines are those that rely on applying significant physics knowledge in their scope. Examples would be medical imaging, many branches of engineering, astronomy and geophysics.

The team leader from each team is automatically included as a Juror unless the school has supplied an alternative. Team leaders will not assess their own team. Where numbers allow, team leaders will also not assess another team from their school, and they should not grade the same team more than twice.

Jurors will receive training in the assessment sheet used. New jurors will work with more experienced ones who will mentor them.

Jurors are assisted be match room attendants supplied by the Trust. These are non-competing volunteers who will

1. At the strat of the second and third matches, distribute the problems that each team may not be challenged on because of their role in previous matches (see section viii).
2. Use the match clock to keep time for the steps of the match
3. Distribute new scoring sheets and collect completed ones
4. Take completed score sheets to the match administrators office for entry into the system

V. The Physics Match regulations

In the course of a physics match the members of a team may communicate freely with each other as long as they do not disturb the match or the jury. They must not interrupt a speaker or address the room in a speakers place; however, they may confer in the preparation times and pass notes to each other at any time.

No team member may use the internet during a match. This includes the observing team.

Before the first round of the match, the Jury and the teams are introduced to each other.

Three teams participate in a Physics match. Each match is held in its own room with only the participating teams, the jury, the match assistants and approved visitors (e.g. tournament photographer) present. Ther are three rounds to a match between teams A, B and C

• Round 1: Team A present, Team B opposes and Team C observes
• Round 2: Team B presents, Team C opposes and Team A observes
• Round 3: Team C presents, Team A opposes and Team B observes.

When entries are not divisible by 3, there will be one or two  team matches, without an observer.

VI. The team roles in a Physics Match

Each team will have either a reporter or an opponent for every leg of the physics match

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. 

During a physics match 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, (c.f. section vii)

The tournament is three physics match rounds, giving every student the chance to present or oppose in at least one physics match.

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 physics match timings are derived from the international competition rules.

There are several steps, each with its own time limit as shown. The time for each step shown below is the maximum allowed IN MINUTES. The jury will stop any step that exceeds its allotted time by more than a few seconds.

Step	Activity in Step	Maximum Step Time       (in minutes)
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	Preparation of the Reporter (not presenting)	5
	Presentation of the report	12
Step 3 – The Opposition	The Opponent asks the reporters a few clarifying question	2
	Preparation of the Opponent to present summary (not presenting)	3
	The Opponent presents their observations	4
	Discussion between the Reporter and the opposer (debate)	10
Step 4 – Jury questions and scoring	The Jury asks additional questions of both teams	5
	Grading and collection of scores from the jury. No discussion between jurors	10
	Score shared with teams	1

This gives a total time allocation of 52 minutes per match round. In practice an hour is allowed.

Ideally, there will be no break between the two legs of a physics match.

VIII. The rules of problem-challenge and rejection

1. The problems presented by each team in a physics match must be different.

The Opponent may challenge the Reporter on any problem with the exception of problems that:

1. were rejected by the Reporter earlier; or
2. were presented by the Reporter earlier; or
3. were opposed by the Opponent earlier; or
4. were presented by the Opponent earlier.

If there are no problems left to challenge, the restrictions are successively removed, in the order d then c then b, until a suitable problem is selected.

Across all three physics matches in a competition, the Reporting team 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 physics matches. 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, considering the presentations, the discussion and  answers to jury questions. . Each Jury member shows integer mark 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 remaining 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 physics match. 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 physics match. The members of that team are automatically offered places in the New Zealand training squad.

XI IYPT New Zealand Team Selection Process

The team is selected in a two-stage process.

1. Stage 1 – a video competition.
2. Stage 2  – a residential selection camp

Students are assessed by a selection panel of Trustees and Teacher Advisory Group members.

The Video Competition

The video competition involves students research one problem from the seven NZ problems and presenting  it on video in a similar way to a tournament face-to-face presentation. They have up to six months to research their problem between problem publication in August and the video competition in February.

They do not need to do their research alone. In fact, as with most of the tournament, teamwork is encouraged. This can be an extra pair of hands when filming an experiment, or a someone to debate the findings with. However, their analysis and presentation should be their own work. All sources of information and assistance should be acknowledged in their references slide.

Obviously, the video assessors will not be sure that the student’s submission reflects their own work, or indeed is the work of their teacher. However, the selection camp will uncover any such subterfuge.

Each video is assessed against a rubric similar to that used for the presentation part of a physics match, less those requiring interaction with the opposition of the jury. Up to 16 students, all of whom must attained the minimum viable mark will be invited to join the “possibles squad” for the residential selection camp. There is a small, non-refundable fee for attending this camp, waived in cases of hardship.

The Selection Camp

The camp is held over a weekend, and residence is compulsory even if students have nearby homes. This is to allow the selectors to see how the student manage on their own.

Only students who qualify for team selection will be able to accept their invitation, although they can acknowledge their selection on their CV. Eligibility includes

• Student is currently enrolled in a recognised secondary school in New Zealand
• State or private school,  registered home schooled or Te Kura
• Tertiary students cannot compete in IYPT
• is a New Zealand citizen 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 disrepute

XII. The status of the regulations of NZYPT

These regulations are established by the Trust in accordance with IYPT regulations. Only the Board of Trustee may amend them.

Last revised 27/01/2026