What is the AYPT?

The Austrian Young Physicists' Tournament (short AYPT) is a team-oriented physics competition among teams of secondary school students. In the months leading up to the tournament in April, the teams do research on open questions in physics. At the tournament they compete: they present their own solution, challenge those of the others and discuss them in front of a jury of experts. The five best students form the national team and represent Austria at the International Young Physicists’ Tournament 2027 in Auckland (New Zealand).

The seventeen (problems for 2027) are deliberately formulated in an open way and have no known model solution. They come from many disciplines of physics and are sometimes interdisciplinary. What is asked for is to investigate the phenomenon experimentally and theoretically and to justify your own conclusions — not to arrive at a predetermined result. Different teams often approach the same problem in completely different ways, and many roads lead to a good solution. The problems are set every year by the International Young Physicists’ Tournament, whose official wording is authoritative.

It does not have to be perfect. Every team member brings one problem, prepared far enough that it can be presented. A complete solution is not expected — experience shows that the teams learn most at the tournament itself, especially where questions are still open. For the students, the AYPT is therefore less an exam than an exercise in scientific discussion: defending your own results, critically examining those of others and dealing with open questions.