March 21st 2026
The New Zealand Young Physicists’ Tournament
The New Zealand Young Physicists’ Tournament is a competition open to all students studying for NCEA Level 3 or equivalent in Physics. A schools may 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. One teacher MUST attend the tournament with each team as the teacher will act as Juror.
The Tournament will be held once again in Auckland. We are expecting more teams this year and have expansion options available to be used as needed. For this reason, the schedule of Tournament day will be confirmed closer to March as the number of teams entering becomes clear.
The Research
The International Tournament set seventeen problems in July each year. The Trust selects seven of these for the New Zealand Tournament and release them in August the year prior to the National schools’ tournament. Students research these problems through simple experiments, linking them to theory. Between them, the team members need to prepare solutions to at least three and ideally five of the seven NZ research problems. here are the 2026 problems
Participation reinforces NCEA level 3 achievement standard 91521. It is also invaluable for student’s wanting to be considered for the representative team the Trust takes overseas annual International tournament. In practice this means involving students in year 12 to maximising their year 13 performance.
The problems can be used as material for science clubs and examination projects so long as their IYPT origin is acknowledged/referenced. These are both ways to extend research time for students and avoids the time pressures of doing everything in term one.
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 whose work uses tertiary level physics. The cumulative scores from three matches decides the top teams in the country. The full tournament rules are here and we have some student resources here.
TEACHERS wishing to enter teams for the 2026 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..
The NZ Representative Team
Our students are a little disadvantaged in the International Tournament because it’s schedule follows the Northern hemisphere’s academic year. We have a big gap in the middle of the experimentation time, July to January each year, when first external exams and then holidays take priority. However we have identified a participation pattern that many of the strongest rep team members have inadvertently followed. As a result we are encourage this two year participation process with this year’s timetable.
Consequently, this year the rep team will be selected BEFORE THE TOURNAMENT IN MARCH. 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.
More details will follow, and some dates are still to be confirmed, however the 2026 rep team schedule is expected to be,
- Student video entries (of one of the 7 problems) will need to be submitted by February 14th
- There will be a selection camp for about 15 students over the weekend of February 28th and March 1st
- Team of 5 announced March 2nd(with reserve(s), teacher mentors assigned
- Weekly online training meetings with team leaders
- Training camps over Anzac and King’s Birthday weekends (team and reserves)
- Pre-departure camp (team only) 27th to 29th June
- 1st July – departure for Zurich
- 5th to 12th July IYPT in Zurich, Switzerland
NB: team training and travel dates are already confirmed. As always, students must commit to attending all training camps to be offered a team place.