New Zealand Young Physicists Tournament 2021

On 29 May, Macleans College sent a team to participate in the New Zealand Young Physicists Tournament held at Ormiston Senior College.

Preparation for the New Zealand Young Physicists Tournament (NZYPT), started as early as last year.

The regional competition itself, lasting for a whole day, required students to challenge and present their findings on open-ended physics questions that were given.

The presentation phase involved a team member giving a 12-minute presentation explaining the phenomenon, model, relevant parameters and quantitative theory involved. The opposition then negated the weakness and flaws in the explanation followed by a discussion phase where both the challenger and the reporter contested the opposition’s proposition.

The placing of the teams was determined by five judges who awarded points to the reporter and the challenger based on their performance.

The opponents the Macleans College team faced in the three fights were very strong including King’s College and Auckland Grammar School. The Macleans College team of Ben Steele (Mansfield House), Oliver Dai (Snell), and Roger Yang (Upham) finished 6th out of 14 teams improving upon the placing achieved last year. However, only the first place was able to proceed to the nationals.