The IYPT—a New Opportunity for Physics Enthusiasts at Stuyvesant

Students at Stuyvesant High School can find a plethora of opportunities to pursue fields in STEM. Nevertheless, there are disproportionately fewer opportunities in physics compared to other fields in STEM. However, Stuyvesant has opened up a new opportunity for students interested in conducting physics research—the International Young Physicists’ Tournament (IYPT). 

The IYPT is a global scientific competition for secondary school students with an emphasis on real-world physics research and the presentation of results. Every year, participants are given 17 open-ended inquiry problems that touch upon various topics in physics, including aerodynamics, electricity and magnetism, mechanics, fluid dynamics, energy, waves, and quantum physics. Some of the IYPT problems for 2025 include “Invent Yourself: Paper Boomerang,” “Climbing Magnets,” and “Sound Versus Fire.” These problems prompt participants to investigate relative parameters, explore a phenomena, and invent devices. For example, “Invent Yourself: Paper Boomerang” involves the construction of a paper boomerang and investigates the factors impacting its motion; “Climbing Magnets” explores the phenomenon of the upward motion of magnets on a spinning ferromagnetic rod; and “Sound Versus Fire” explores relevant parameters affecting sound’s ability to extinguish a small flame. Consequently, participants formulate and perform experiments, which the participants will reveal in their presentations during the tournament. 

The actual tournament, which will be held from late June to early July 2025 in Lund, Sweden, takes the form of a scientific discussion that the IYPT refers to as a “fight”—though more of a “scientific fight” rather than an actual argument or debate. Participants take turns playing the roles of Reporter, Opponent, and Reviewer, and their performance is reviewed by an international jury. The Opponent Team challenges the Reporter Team on a certain problem. Although the Reporter Team can choose whether to accept or reject the challenge, the team faces point deductions if they reject too many challenges. When a problem has been selected, the Reporter Team has five minutes to prepare notes, a presentation, or a live demonstration. The Reporter Team then has a maximum of 12 minutes to present their findings on the problem. After the report, the Opponent Team is allotted a few minutes of preparation time before highlighting the positive characteristics and flaws of the Report. The Reporter then tries to defend their solution, which the Opponent tries to rebuke. Afterward, the Reviewer Team asks questions to both teams and then presents an overview of the performance of the Opponent Team. At the end, the jurors can ask brief questions to all three teams. After short breaks, the teams’ roles are exchanged in the following “stages” until every single team has taken the role of Reporter exactly once. Ultimately, performances are judged on a scale from 1-10. Additionally, all communication during the tournament is conducted exclusively in English, team members are forbidden to interact with their team’s advisors during fights, only one team member can be active during the presentation while other team members assist with setting up technology or providing brief remarks, and it is forbidden for the same team member to act as Reporter, Opponent, and Reviewer in the same fight. 

The IYPT team at Stuyvesant High School is supervised by music teacher Dr. Gregor Winkel. The team meets on whichever days most team members are available—currently Tuesdays, but it is subject to change. However, the level of commitment is dependent on the members. During their meetings, members conduct experiments using equipment found around the school and special equipment purchased through PA funding. Other meetings consist of members learning and researching relevant physics phenomena that pertain to a certain IYPT problem. By February 2025, the team needs to submit brief individual videos of themselves explaining their answers to all the IYPT problems they have investigated so far. Since there are 17 problems total, and each problem requires an extensive amount of research and experimentation, Dr. Winkel is hoping to expand the current IYPT team to more Stuyvesant students who are interested in physics. 

Participating in the IYPT offers members many benefits besides exposure to unique topics not covered in the Honors Physics curriculum, such as quantum physics and aerodynamics. During an email interview, Dr. Winkel recommended that students should participate in the IYPT because it refines teamwork, data analysis, critical thinking, leadership, and time management skills. Furthermore, Dr. Winkel added that the IYPT requires extensive research and creativity since even the physicists who create the IYPT problems do not know the solutions to some of them. As a result, participants are motivated to learn, explore, and research on their own accord and later compare their findings with teams all over the world in a global conference to better understand the workings of our universe. 

Last year, senior William Shiu—a junior at the time—was intrigued by this physics research competition and authored two projects: an acoustic machine learning model to predict internal microstates and the optimization of a ping-pong rocket. These projects qualified him to be selected as one of the five students to represent the U.S. at the IYPT tournament with a $3500 sponsorship in Budapest, Hungary, where the U.S. team received its highest placement in history at 23rd place. In an email interview, Shiu recalled using “creative and unconventional” research techniques since the resources in Stuyvesant’s physics lab were limited. For data collection, Shiu and 13 other student research assistants designed and engineered a machine at Stuyvesant’s newest robotics lab from scratch that minimizes angular velocity and drops a cup so that it lands uniformly. Due to the difficulty of data collection, Shiu recalls staying late at Stuyvesant until instructed to leave by security for several nights and even coming to school on weekends. Additionally, he spent a lot of time at home analyzing data using video tracking software. Despite the large amount of time and dedication needed during research, Shiu describes it as truly a rewarding experience: “I’ll never forget the long nights and uplifting people I [was] doing research with, but that feeling is truly special, one that not many have the privilege of experiencing,” he said. Shiu advises aspiring researchers to not be discouraged by experimental failures as results do not usually match theory perfectly. Shiu also recalls applying his background in computational and biological research to one of the IYPT problems. Hence, many IYPT problems can connect to other disciplines of scientific research and involve more depth than expected. This year, Shiu and fellow researchers from last year plan on mentoring prospective competitors in IYPT from any grade to give others the chance to view scientific research as a rewarding, meaningful experience despite the challenges along the way. 

The IYPT is a great opportunity for Stuyvesant students aspiring to pursue research and/or physics at an international level. Since only a few high schools in the United States are participating in the IYPT, Stuyvesant students have a large chance of traveling to Sweden to present their research. If anyone is interested in joining Stuyveant’s IYPT team or would like to know more about this opportunity, reach out to Dr. Winkel at GWinkel@schools.nyc.gov.