We are thrilled to announce that HKYPT 2025 will be organised by HKAGE. Please refer to the official information on their website.
Registration
Q: What is the cost for registration?
A: There is no registration fee involved.
Q: When is the deadline for registration.
A: We need schools to let us know their interests as soon as possible so that we can plan the logistics. However, the deadline for the competition will be on 31 Oct. Schools will need to submit the problems they wish to report, in ranked order. We will assign teams their first choice unless every team decides to report on the same problem, then teams may need to report on their 2nd choice.
Q: What constitutes a team for the competition?
A: Each team should consist of 4 students and 1 teacher. 1 of the student will be the reporter. Another student will be the opponent. 2 other students will be involved in the research and assisting in the competition but will not be speaking on stage.
Q: Can I take part if there are only two members in my team?
A: Yes, only a minimum of 2 member is required for the competition but it is not recommended as the workload on the members will be much heavier.
Q: Can we have more than 4 students for a team.
A: No. Only 4 students will be going on stage and given a certificate. If more than 4 students are interested, we recommend forming a second team for the school.
Q: How many problems does each team needs to work on?
A: Each team need to report 1 problem and oppose 1 problem. The opposing team will be randomly determined and the team will be informed of the opposing problem by November. 2 teams from the same school will not be opposing each other. The reporting student and the opposing student must be a different student. The opposing problem cannot be the same problem as the reporting problem.
Q: Can a student be registered for more than one team?
A: No. Teachers may be registered for more than one team but not the students.
Q: How many teams can the school send for the competition?
A: Each school is allowed to send 1 or 2 teams for the competition. However, the 2 teams cannot report the same problem.
Q: Is there any age limit or grade limit for the competition?
A: Any secondary school graduates can participate in the HKYPT. The participation of university students is not allowed. The organizer may decide to categorize team into senior and junior category in future. For the moment, all participants are placed in the same category.
Q: When does school need to decide the team members?
A: The school will only need to confirm the team members 1 week before the competition but the school should be fair to the students who put in effort for the competition.
Q: My school does not have high-end equipment capable of generating highly precise data. In that case, will my team be disadvantaged in the experimentation stage?
A: The jurors understand this limitation. As such, the emphasis is placed on correct modeling of physics concepts and less on precision of experimentation.
Q: I am keen to participate but I am not confident of applying difficult theory to explain my team's experimental observations.
A: Difficult theory may not be the best theory. The jurors want to see how the team conceptualise the experiment, understand the physics behind it and model the phenomena observed. It will suffice if the team is able to apply simple theory to explain the observations.
Q: What are the weightings of Reporting and Opposing?
A: Reporting score is multiplied by a coefficient of 3 while Opposing score is multiplied by a coefficient of 2. The awards will be based on the rank order of the total score of all fights.
Q: What is the format of the competition?
The detailed format of the competition can be found here.