A maximum of 18 teams can participate in the International Physicists’ Tournament. Four seats are by default attributed to the previous edition’s finalists and to the host country.
The preselection consist of one written report of 5 pages maximum outlining the solution to one problem from the official list.
- Participating teams that apply directly can write their report on problem 3) Lego Tower or problem 15) Tea with honey.
- Teams selected from a National Tournament or a National Selection held before 15th January 2017 can, in addition, choose to write their report on problem 1) Handy Glider or 10) Light-driven vehicle.
The reports must be handled in a .pdf format, with the text arranged in a single or double columns and cannot exceed 5 pages (except the title page), including plots and/or pictures. The team is free to enclose its own experimental material (videos, computer programs, etc… all in total smaller than 10Mb or links to online material) and to cite it properly in the report.
The teams have until January 15th, 23h59 UTC to send their report only to president@iptnet.info (for anonymity reasons).
Each report will be judged on the basis of three main criteria: 1) does it give a plausible physical answer to the initial question, 2) is the approach innovative, and is it supported by experiment and/or theory, 3) has the problem been explored in sufficient depth, i.e. have all the possible approaches been considered. The form of the report (layout, phrasing, presentation) is also important. It should be written in a clear and concise manner.
Each report will be anonymised before being distributed amongst the jury members. To ease the anonymisation process, if unnecessary please avoid any explicit mention of your team’s university or origin, except on the title page. The qualified teams will be announced at the latest by January 22nd, 23h59 UTC.
Each jury member can grade all the reports except the ones from his/her own country’s teams, if any. Each report will be graded by the same number of jury members. The teams will be ranked according to their report and receive some feedback about their work. The ranking will serve as the basis for seeds in the tournament.
The preselection process is free of charges. The registration fees will have to be paid only by the teams qualified for the international competition, and will be due to the LOC by January 31st.
As an example, below is one of the best (anonymised) report from last year’s preselection.
report_preselection_example
