The International Young Physicists' Tournament (IYPT)

Official website: http://www.iypt.org/

The Young Physicists' Tournament came into being in 1979 as a competition for secondary schools in Moscow, but since 1988, the competition has become international, and has more recently attracted teams from all five continents. The UK entered the tournament for the first time in 2003 - and Shrewsbury School's 2003 team was selected to represent the UK at the International Final in Sweden, and came joint third overall.

In 2004, Shrewsbury School’s physics master John Balcombe became the UK representative on the International Organising Committee and an Independent Juror. 

Ever since the UK's entry into the IYPT, Shrewsbury's success in this prestigious international competition has been quite extraordinary. Our team has flown the UK flag at the international tournament in Switzerland (2005), Slovakia (2006), Korea (2007) and China (2010) - and they returned from China with Bronze medals.  We were the runner-up team in the UK Final in 2011, but in 2012 we were victorious once again.

The international competition consists of teams of five students from each country challenging each other to present their solutions to a selection from seventeen very challenging physics problems.  The problems are set prior to the competition by an international panel of professional physicists and teachers.  Perhaps the most interesting aspect of IYPT is that a student from another team then attempts to tear holes in the presenter's solution in an ensuing 'Physics Fight'.  The latter can become very heated indeed, with reputations at stake!

Our team members are now preparing to represent the UK in the IYPT in Bad Saulgau, Germany, in July 2012.  More information, and the details of the seventeen obscure problems that they need to solve are on http://iypt.org/Tournaments/Bad_Saulgau. Please also see our IYPT 2012 news article for more details of our 2012 team's win.