2025 National IYPT Competition - Brisbane

Team: Ryan Wee, Chu Xu, Georgi Demosthenous, Brendan Kang

Teachers: Mr Alexandru Gavrilescu, Dr Penelope Hale

Ryan Wee and Chu Xu: Bronze medal

Georgi Demosthenous and Brendan Kang: Silver medal

What is IYPT?

IYPT, The International Young physicists Tournament is a debating style physics competition, in which competitors participate in rounds called ‘physics fights’. Each physics fight consists of a reporter and an opposition. Here, the reporter must talk through a ten minute presentation where they present a topic that they have researched, which consists of an experimental section, and a theoretical section. The experimental section must include a related experiment that was conducted to help answer the research question, and the theoretical section must include a mathematical model for how the system or problem works. The opposition then “attacks” the reporter by asking the reporter questions and trying to find errors or holes that the reporter did not consider. The physics fight is then judged by a group of judges who score the teams out of ten.

This competition is eligible for high school students year ten and above, and the level of difficulty can be determined by how much depth or how the student may approach the problem. Hence, the tournament is well suited to all students with a reasonable knowledge and passion in physics.

In our preparation, we had a lot of focus on the mathematical parts of the theory in the projects, delving deep to make complex mathematical models. We spent a lot of time on this, and as a result were held back by our experiments which we didn’t prioritise as much. This was the main thing we could’ve improved on in our approach to this tournament. Unfortunately, it resulted in Chu and Ryan not making it to finals, but they still managed to earn a bronze medal. On the other hand, Brendan and Georgi were able to adapt, coming third in finals, earning a silver medal. Brendan and Georgi were selected for the international team to represent Australia in Sweden where Mr Gavrilescu is a judge.  

~ Dr Penelope Hale