The 2025 New Zealand Young Physicists’ Tournament will be held in Auckland on Saturday, March 22nd

The New Zealand Young Physicists’ Tournament is a competition open to all students studying for NCEA Level 3 or equivalent in Physics. This year, the national, inter-school team tournament will be held on a Saturday 22nd of March in Auckland. Competition will start at 9.00 am, conclude at about 4.00 pm and be followed by a prize giving celebration. There is no online competition this year; teams must attend in person.

Schools can enter up to two teams of three students. Schools can also combine to form a team so long as one of the teacher from those schools supports them.

Between them, the team prepares solutions to the seven research questions for 2025. Students research these problems through simple experiments, linking them to theory. Each student studies one or two problems so that between them, a team has solutions to at least three, and ideally five or more, of the seven problems.

At the tournament, the teams present their research and then answer questions about their work in a series of ‘Physics Matches“. The matches are watched and scored by a jury panel of physics teachers and other volunteers working with tertiary level physics. The cumulative scores from three matches decides the top teams in the country.

The NZ Representative Team for Sweden, July 2025

The Tournament problems are the foundation for selecting the new Zealand Representative team. There are additional requirements for students wanting to be considered for the NZ representative team including options for individual students who are unable to participate in the team tournament.

Teachers wishing to enter teams for the 2025 New Zealand Young Physicist Tournament can register their interest here. This adds you to our mailing list but does not commit you to entering the tournament. Further instructions and updates about the tournament will be published on this site and emailed to those teachers and students who have registered their interests. This will include venues, payment due dates, etc..

Fees for 2025: In 2024, fees were $135 per team of three students including their teacher/juror. This pays for the lunch and other refreshments provided for participants, room hire and administration. Fees for 2-25 are yet to be set but will be kept as low as possible. Fees may be waived in cases of hardship if approved by the NZYPT national organising committee.