Tournament Information

Summary of Tournament Format

The United States Invitational for Young Physicists Tournament is a two-day tournament that includes six or seven preliminary rounds, four finals rounds, and a poster presentation session. In the preliminary rounds, each team Reports three times, Opposes three times, and may have one bye round if there are an odd number of teams.

Rounds: The Physics Fight

A “Physics Fight” is best described as a competitive thesis defense centered around a physics problem. It is a metaphorical term for a discussion between teams in their search for the truth, where one team “Reports” their theoretical and experimental findings while the other team “Opposes” their findings. Strong Reports can still have strong Oppositions that are collegial and professional, not contentious. It does not mirror debates where one team is awarded for catching the other team in mistakes.

The format of each round of Physics Fights are:

• 5 minutes: Introductions of teams and jurors, and the Opposers challenge the Reporters to a specific problem to present
• 10 minutes: the Reporter presents their findings
• 3 minutes: the Opposers prepare for the conversation
• 12 minutes: the Opposers engage in a conversation with the Reporter about the Reporter’s findings. The opponent is not permitted to address the jury at this point; rather, the opponent should ask questions and guide the discussion
• 3 minutes: the Reporter and Opposer prepare and give their closing summary remarks to the jury
• 8 minutes: Jurors ask questions of both the Reporter and Opposer about their conversation.

After this, the teams and audience leave the room. The Head Juror leads the jury in discussion about the round, jurors are given some time to score the Reporter and Opposer each, and the scorecards are collected. Overall, jurors are looking to see:

• How well each team communicates an understanding of the problem’s theoretical background
• How well each team communicates an understanding of how experimental evidence provides support for the theory
• The quality of each team’s interactions in advancing a physics conversation

At the tournament, each team competes in three Physics Fights as a Reporter, and three as an Opponent. Only data from the Reporting team’s work can be discussed during a Physics Fight, and the Opponent’s outside research cannot be brought into the discussion. For the entirety of each round, only one team member from the Reporting team and one team member from the Opposing team may speak. The other team members are provided Post-It notes that they can pass on to their respective Reporting or Opposing team member, but only the Reporter/Opposer for that specific problem may speak on behalf of their teams during that Physics Fight.

Preliminary Rounds

Each preliminary round consists of one Reporter showing their findings to an Opposing team. A Head Juror runs the round, and they and several jurors score the Reporter and the Opposer on their respective rubrics for that round.

The schedule for how teams will compete against each other in the seven preliminary rounds is designed by the Tournament Director, and called “The Matrix.” The Matrix is redesigned each year based on the number of participating schools and logistical features of the host institution, and it optimizes the chances that the same two teams do not meet multiple times, which rounds each time is assigned to Report vs. Oppose others, and when those teams have their “bye” rounds. Teams find out which assignments they have at the Opening Ceremonies at the beginning of each tournament.

Within the preliminary rounds, teams will Report three times and Oppose three times. At the beginning of each round, the Opposition challenges the Reporter to one of the four problems, so Reporters do not know ahead of time when they will report each presentation. Here are the rules on the Opponent’s choices for the challenge:

The Opponent may challenge the Reporter on any problem except a problem that:

1. was presented by the Reporter earlier
2. was rejected by the Reporter earlier
3. was opposed by the Opponent earlier
4. was presented by the Opponent earlier

If there is only one problem left to challenge, the banned problems in “3” and “4” above are successively removed, in that order. Points “1” and “2” cannot be touched.

Since there are only three rounds in which a team Reports, there is one problem that each team will not report in the preliminaries. Teams can only reject the Opposing team’s challenge once and must present the second problem challenged on. After the first round and before each subsequent preliminary round, all of the Opposition teams will be provided a list of which problems their next Reporters can be challenged on - basically, any problem they have not already presented in a previous preliminary round or that they have Opposed in the immediately preceding round.

The reasoning for the rules of challenges is to ensure that each team gets to present their three strongest work and is not forced to always Report the same problem in multiple preliminary rounds. Once the preliminaries are over, though, the list of “challenge-able” problems is reset for the finals, and teams in the Poster Session may select their work for whichever problem they wish.

Final Rounds & Swartz Poster Session

At the conclusion of the Preliminary Rounds, the Tournament Director announces the top teams to make the final rounds, based on their weighted scores from Reporting and Opposing in the Preliminaries. A new Matrix is made for the finalists, and the final rounds immediately begin. The format of the final rounds are identical to the format of the preliminary rounds, and likewise the same team member cannot Report or Oppose in all rounds of the final. The scores are reset so that the winning score is based on performance from just the finals, no aspect of the scores in the preliminary rounds carry into the finals. Opponents’ challenges follow the same rules as in the preliminary rounds, except for the last round that each team Reports in the finals, where teams can pick which problem they wish to Report as long as it was not already Reported in an earlier round of the finals.

Meanwhile, teams that did not make it to the finals participate in a Poster Session. Each team selects their best presentation to be printed out onto a poster board, and the Reporter in charge of that problem then presents their work to jurors who will circulate amongst all the posters. The format of the conversation is more casual, typically entailing a 3 minute summary of the presentation to the juror who walks by, and a chance for the juror to ask follow up questions. Though only the jurors provide scores for the posters, all YPT attendees are also welcome to circulate and engage with the different posters at this time as well, as we all resolve our final thoughts and insights to the four problems.

Team Members, Scouts, Coaches, and Jurors

Each team consists of a minimum of 3 students and a maximum of 4 students from the same high school. The expectation is that one student is both the Reporter and Opposer for one of the four problems for the entirety of that year’s tournament. One person on a given team may present two problems (such as would need to be the case if a school had a 3 student team), but no one student is allowed to Report or Oppose all three problems in the Preliminary Rounds. Of the 4 students, one is designated as a Team Captain who serves as the official point person for their team throughout the tournament. Once the tournament begins, substitutions cannot be made onto the team.

“Scouts” are additional school members who may watch any of the rounds happening throughout the tournament. Schools can bring up to 8 scouts (even if a school can afford to bring more students to the tournament as scouts, it’s not fair if one school brings many more than farther schools can!). As is the case for all audience members to a Physics Fight, scouts are not allowed to take any notes, make any recordings, or communicate in any way with people outside of the round. As soon as they leave the room at the end of the round, they may speak to their teammates and write things down - but it must be from memory. This means your scouts must also understand the concepts discussed in the problems, so it is a good idea to have scouts who have strong familiarity with the problems and have worked on them closely with the team members serving as Reporters!

Each team has a maximum of two coaches, who are teachers that have worked with the students on the four research problems. The vast majority of their role entails preparing with the students through the year leading up to the tournament, and other than communication with their teams and scouts between rounds about the Physics Fights, they’re pretty much just chaperones! During each round, coaches are the same as other audience members, and their only special privilege is that they may record videos or photograph their own team, but only while their team Reports (none of the opposition, discussion, or juror questions may be recorded). Just as in a sporting event, the format of the rounds ensures that coaches’ only roles are to prepare the students and advise them on their performance before or after the fact - it is truly up to the students to justify their understanding and findings to their peers and the jurors without corrections or live feedback from coaches.

The jurors are the reason our students have such rich experiences at the tournament! The role of the juror is to vet the Reporter’s and the Opposer’s understandings of the problems with their sharp questions. Jurors are volunteers and have a wide range of backgrounds, including physics professors, physics high school teachers, engineers and other STEM professionals in industry, and graduate students. Jurors are assigned to different rooms for all rounds such that there is a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives for each Physics Fight. Jurors must have taken at least one year of physics in college and if they attended high school at a participating USIYPT school then they must be at least four years out of high school (so that they could not have possibly attended high school with any current team members or scouts). The local host of each tournament recruits a pool of jurors, and USAYPT helps other jurors travel to the tournament.

Within each room, the jury also includes a Head Juror and one “dirty juror.” The Head Juror’s role is to keep time, ensure all rules are followed, clarify any points for the jury, and ensure the collegial spirit of the tournament is respected. Head Jurors are always people who have vast experience with YPT and are unaffiliated with a participating school. The “dirty juror” is one coach from a participating team - the reason for including a dirty juror is so that at least one person on the jury is someone who has spent a full year becoming familiar with the four problems and may be able to clarify nuances specific to that year’s slate of problems. A coach will never be a dirty juror for their own team, and they will only serve as a dirty juror during a round that their team is not presenting (so that both coaches are always available to watch their own team Report).

We have many jurors who return again and again regardless of where the tournament is located, and many YPT alums often return as jurors after their college graduations and recruit their physics friends as jurors, too. We do not pay jurors to come to tournaments! Jurors return year after year for the joy of deep conversations with young minds, and the students are keen to engage with professionals on the physics problems they have delved so passionately into for the last year. We thank our jurors profusely for their time and energy! If you are interested in becoming a juror for any future tournament, please see our Get Involved page.