Separately, it should be noted that the level of preparation of all teams was at the highest level, just like in a normal academic year, when there were no obstacles to accessing university laboratories, for meetings, and for training performances. Bravo to the teams!

Below we publish the official full results of the Tournament, which can also be viewed here: https://connect.iptnet.info/IPT2020/tournament

Also, you can watch or rewatch the full recording of the IPT-2020 Grand Finale on our YouTube channel.

If any of finalist teams wants to have their own flyer, then they can get the one right here!

Of course, a huge responsibility lay on the shoulders of the Executive Committee and demanded complete dedication over at least the past two weeks. Therefore, of course, it was not without technical issues and small mistakes, which, we hope, did not become a disappointment for our dear participants.

However, IPT-2020 is not over and we invite you to the Conference: https://2020.iptnet.info/the-conference !

Follow our news on social networks:
Facebook.com/InternationalPhysicistsTournament,
Twitter.com/IPT_Official,
Instagram.com/the_ipt_official
and the Telegram group!

If you have any questions, use the contact form or, if you are a participant, write to us in the Telegram group!

This occasion calls for some experimentations and that’s why we announce that, alongside the usual tournament, it will also be present a conference-format IPT, where students from all the teams worldwide, even those which didn’t qualify for the international tournament, will have the possibility to present their solutions and reply to questions from the audience.

We are currently in the process of restyling our 2020.iptnet.info website for the occasion, therefore you will soon find all the information you need there!

The 21 teams that will be participating to the 12th edition of IPT are:

• Australia – University of Queensland
• Brazil – University of Campinas (Winners of the Brazilian national selection)
• China – Nankai Univesity
• Colombia – Universidad Industrial de Santander (Winners of the Colombian national selection)
• Croatia – Sveučilište u Zagrebu (Winners of the Croatian national selection)
• Denmark – Technical University of Denmark
• France – ENSTA Paris (Winners of the French national selection)
• Germany – Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Winners of the German national selection)
• Greece – National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Winners of the Greek national selection)
• Italy – Università di Bologna (Winners of the Italian national selection)
• India – IISER Bhopal (Winners of the Indian national selection)
• Pakistan – SNS and NUST Islamabad
• Poland – University of Warsaw
• Russia – Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (Winners of the Russian national selection)
• Singapore – National University of Singapore
• Slovenia – University of Ljubljana
• Sweden – KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Winners of the Swedish national selection)
• Switzerland – ETH Zürich (Winners of the Swiss national selection)
• Ukraine – University of Kharkiv  (Winners of the Ukranian national selection)
• United Kingdom – University of Cambridge (Winners of the British national selection)
• USA – Rice University (Winners of the American national selection)

The period for registering a team for the IPT 2020 is now closed! This year, we have a record for registered teams, with a total of 26 and more impressively: from all 5 continents, for the first time in the history of the tournament, with 15 national selections announced.

For the tournament to take place in Poland we have 21 seats available. Of these 21 seats, 7 are already reserved for the semifinalists and finalists of the 2019 edition (Ukraine, France, Russia, Colombia, Switzerland and Sweden) and Poland, the host for 2020. In this case, the other 19 teams are required to participate in the international preselection which we explain below. Of the 19, the 14 teams with the best reports will fill the spots for the IPT. In case of dropouts, the empty seats will be distributed following the preselection ranking.

Preselection problems

We remind that the preselection reports must be sent to president@iptnet.info only. Reports must not contain any reference to the country which authored it. This year’s problems for preselection are:

• 2 – Precious Energy
• 3 – Paper tube
• 14 – Jumping bean

Teams with a national selection, in addition to the problems above, can also choose:

• 1 – Cumulative cannon
• 6 – Planetary clock

The winner of the national tournament wins their country’s seat in the tournament, should they also pass the international pre-selection stage. Please also note that the pre-selection stage is free. Teams have until January 22nd to send their preselection reports. An example report is available in this page, along with all rules of preselection. We wish you all good luck and hope to see you in Poland!

Registration for IPT 2020 open!

Registration for IPT 2020 is now open. For countries with an IOC member, please register your team with them who will then select a team to represent your country at the international finals in 2020. You can find a list of IOC members here. The deadline for registration is the 15th of December 23:59 GMT.

First-time Registration

If the country that hosts your university has not yet participated in the IPT, you can form a team on your own and directly contact us.

If more than one team applies in a country without a representative, the Executive Committee takes the responsibility to organise a national selection. The teams must complete a written report outlining the solution to one problem selected from a possible three that will be taken from the official list selected by the IOC. The teams have 4 weeks after the registration deadline to send their written report. Each team is free to enclose his own experimental material and to cite it properly in the report.

The Executive Committee may help the new participating countries to pay their entry fees to the tournament. However, the travel costs to and from the tournament location are the charge of the team.

Constitution of the teams

A team consists of a maximum of six students (only bachelor and master students – no PhD accepted, sorry!), and two team leaders (PhD, Postdoc, or Professors).

Fees

The fees are 1100€ per team. The fees include housing, meals and some activities during the week of the tournament.

For any additional participant, a supplementary fee must be paid by the sending university or the participant to cover his/her accommodation and living costs. The supplementary fee per individual for the 2020 edition will be EUR TBA.- The travel costs from and to the tournament have to be paid by the teams.

Pre-selection

Please note that in the case more teams apply than there are seats available, a pre-selection process will be initiated. In which case, certain teams will be required to submit a report on one of the problems below. Reports will be graded according to if they give a plausible solution, how well supported they are (experiment and/or theory), how innovative the solution is and how well all the possible solutions have been considered. The teams have to send their report only to president@iptnet.info (for anonymity reasons). Each team has until a month after the registration deadline to submit a scientific style report on a finished or even unfinished solution to one of the following three problems:

• 2 – Precious Energy
  
• 3 – Paper tube
  
• 14 – Jumping bean

As a reminder, the description of the problems is available on the website.

The report must have a .pdf format and cannot exceed 5 pages (except the title page). You are free to enclose your own experimental material (videos, photos, computer programs – smaller than 10 MB in total) and to cite it properly in the report. In addition, countries with national selections (at least 3 teams participating in physical fights format judged by a jury, at least 2 fights), teams may choose from an additional two problems:

• 1 – Cumulative cannon
• 6 – Planetary clock

Often the winner of the national tournament wins their country’s seat in the tournament, should they also pass the international pre-selection stage. Please also note that the pre-selection stage is free.

After some months of search for a new host, we are very happy to announce that the IPT 2020 will be held in Warsaw, Poland. The event will be organized by the Faculty of Physics of the University of Warsaw, which has been participating of the IPT for years now.

We wish all teams a great preparation for their national selections that will happen in the next few months and hope to see you in Poland!

Earlier this month the new 17 open problems involving experimental and theoretical challenges were published on our website, and you can check them out here or in the preview below.

This year, we added a new statement about how the IPT problems were thought of and how the solutions are expected to be: open-ended, such as the problems themselves.

All the problems, to stimulate a good discussion, have been formulated as open physics questions. That’s why the statement is never too stringent and it is assumed that every phenomenon will be studied both theoretically and experimentally (when possible) with dependence on all the most relevant parameters. More than that, there is not any general understanding of the task condition. If your interpretation of a certain problem condition corresponds to the written one and is interesting enough and your investigation is challenging and broad – the jury members will most likely award you with the nice marks. Surely, your team is not expected to spend years on every problem. So you should carefully consider your time budget and choose the most important and interesting parameters to study together with doing your best on both the theoretical model and experimental confirmation.

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In addition, any questions we receive from the teams that can be relevant for other participants too will be published in the 2020’s problem section.

This year’s problems are a result of a collaboration from teams all over the world and were selected according to the IPT rules and IOC voting submitted in the stipulated period.

While we wait to announce where the IPT 2020 will take place: let’s get to work!