SYPT 2025 Format

SYPT Format

Since 2019, the Poster Presentation has been included in SYPT to encourage teams to continue working on the SYPT problems at different levels. This year, a new route has been offered for teams who wish to focus only on one main problem. These teams may proceed directly to the poster presentation without needing to prepare for the shortlisting.

Teams who are interested to join the Main Fights will undergo a shortlisting selection for the Main Fights. Any teams who attend the shortlisting but are not selected for the Main Fights are still welcome to join the Poster Presentation.

The number of teams participating in the various categories may vary from year to year up to the discretion of the jurors.

requirements for citation

Requirements for citation of sources used

Jurors must be able to clearly distinguish the team's original work from the work of others.

Teams are responsible for making clear distinctions between their own work and work that has been re-used/ existing research, such as by clearly citing all sources used during the presentation on the respective slide. Not doing so may result not only in a lower score but potentially also a disciplinary procedure in cases that shall be considered as plagiarism.

Shortlisting

Shortlisting will be held in person at on 16 and 23 Nov 2024 for Categories B and A respectively.

For the shortlisting, teams will prepare a 12 minute presentation comprising:

10 minutes oral presentation (83%) to a panel of jurors on one main problem, and
2 minutes of discussion (17%) on the progress of any 2 other problems in the registered Category*.

After the presentation, registered teams will participate in a 10-15 min Q&A session with a panel of jurors regarding their presentation.

The problems may be chosen from any of the SYPT problems in the registered Category (click here for the list of problems).
For schools with more than one team, the main problem presented by each team MUST be different. This applies across Categories as well, i.e. Cat A and Cat B teams cannot both present on the same main problem.

Category A - for participants in JC1 / IP5 / PU1 (or equivalent) and below as of 2024;

Category B - for participants in Sec 3 / IP3 (or equivalent) and below as of 2024.

An email will be sent to all registered teams with further instructions and schedule for the shortlisting.

Main Fight

SYPT 2025 will be held on-site at CHIJ St Nicholas Girl's School for Category B and National Junior College for Category A. The dates are:

15 Feb 2025 - Finals: Category B
22 Feb 2025 - Finals: Category A

As with previous years, teams will still present 2 problems and oppose 2 problems in the category list. This can include the problems used during Shortlisting. Problems will be based on IYPT challenge rules.

Details on the rules and guidelines for the online event will be updated soon.

The scoring rubric can be found here. This rubric is adapted from the IYPT rubric.

It is important to note the requirements for citation of sources used.

The format for each fight is as follows:

Order of Main Physics Fight (PF)

Reserved Time (min)

Opponent challenges the Reporter. Reporter team captain accepts or rejects the challenge (Only for Main Fights. Mini-fights problems are pre-determined, so step not required.)

A team may reject the challenge of four different problems without penalty. From then on, every subsequent rejection will result in drop of coefficient of 0.2 (starting from 3.0).

The problems that an opponent cannot challenge will be informed by the chief juror in the room. Problems cannot be challenged if :

(a) presented by the opponent earlier; (b) opposed by the opponent earlier;

There must be at least 2 problems left to challenge, otherwise the conditions are released in the order a, b, c, d.

The Reporter prepares his/her presentation

The Reporter presents the proposed solution to the problem

The Opponent orally questions the Reporter

The Opponent prepares his/her presentation

The Opponent takes the floor and leads an oral discussion with the Reporter within 5 minute of taking the floor

The Opponent takes the floor to summarise the discussion

Final concluding remarks from the Reporter

Questions from jurors

All jurors write initial comments and scores for Reporter and Opponent

Open scoring (Head juror requests all jurors to reveal their scores to everyone and request jurors with highest and lowest score to comment)

Poster Presentation

Teams will prepare a poster on one (1) of the problems from the Category list. This can be the same problem that was used for shortlisting.

On the day of the Finals, teams will present their work to jurors at the tournament. Teams are advised that they will be judged on a clear presentation that focuses on correct key physics theory that explains the phenomenon. This presentation should be about 10 minutes.

Teams should also be prepared to present their work to their peers attending as audience members, or other participants.

If you wish to attend this event as an audience member, please approach your school's teacher-in-charge, if applicable, or send an email to LIM_Wei_Hao@moe.gov.sg or kelvin_LIN@moe.gov.sg.

Click here for important information about the requirements for citation of sources used.