Valencia Zhang ’25, Helios Hong ’25, Ethan Lai ’24, and Raina Yang ’24 traveled to North Carolina University for the USA Young Physicists Tournament
Andover students took third place in the USA Young Physicists Tournament (YPT), going head to head with teams from around the world in presenting research on topics like mapping the moon and studying the mechanics of long jumping. The Andover team, comprised of four competing students (Jenny Jin ’24, Helios Hong ’25, Raina Yang ’24, and Valencia Zhang ’25) and four non-competing scouts (Winston Wall ’25, Ethan Lai ’24, Alex Coman ’24, and James Xiao ’25) who gathered information about other teams’ presentations, competed at North Carolina University over the weekend of February 3.
Yang shared how her physics journey at Andover inspired her to compete in the tournament. She highlighted the Prize Exam she participated in last year, which directed her towards Physics 500, a course that explores experimental approaches in physics and is closely connected to the competition.
“The Young Physicists Tournament gets integrated into the Physics Department through the Prize Exam and the Physics 500 course… The Prize Exam is essentially [where] you’re working with a partner on the problems of the Young Physicists’ Tournament, and then you do a presentation for faculty within the department, the science division, and then they grade you… [In] my Upper Year, I participated in the Prize Exam with my partner Ethan, and we won the Prize Exam which was very exciting. So, we got a little telescope as a prize, and then we continued our project onwards into Senior Fall. And then ultimately this led up towards us competing at the tournament,” said Yang.
The competition consisted of repeated cross-examination and presentation rounds. Yang discussed the experience of competing alongside her teammates in the tournament. She emphasized the supportive environment her teammates fostered, as well as how the tournament allowed her to see her friends, faculty, and physics from a new perspective.
“The competition [was] not a solo competition: it was very dependent on the team and the entire team needed to be very strong in order for us to place well. So we were helping each other… Our team captain, Jenny, was helping me a lot with practicing how I would answer a lot of opposition questions for cards… It was a great bonding experience. We were up until 1 a.m. preparing on both Friday and Saturday night, but it was very fun. I learned a lot about the faculty that brought us there, and also it was great to work with people outside of a classroom context,” said Yang.
As a scout, Lai commented on his experience observing and analyzing other schools’ presentations to identify strengths and weaknesses in their research. By anticipating questions and formulating strategic responses, he provided his teammates with valuable insights and enhanced their competitive edge. Lai also emphasized the importance of understanding other teams’ solutions in order to prepare for cross-questioning sessions.
“I went to other teams’ presentations and looked to see if there was anything that we could question them on or any strengths. I was just generally serving as a scout gathering information about other teams, and then I would help our presenters prepare for how to answer questions or how to ask questions of other teams and maybe prepare for the types of questions that they might be seeing or just be aware of how other people are approaching the problems. I also helped them just generally practice their presentations and prepare, asking questions and stuff like that,” said Lai.
Another scout, Coman, reflected on the diversity of the YPT teams. Coman pointed out that the appeal of the tournament lay not only in its competitiveness but also in the opportunity it presented for students to witness the creativity and collaborative spirit of individuals from across the globe working together to tackle complex problems.
“What I really enjoyed about YPT was the diversity of all the different groups. There were teams that came all the way from China, from Kyrgyzstan, from Georgia. And it was really interesting to see how all these people from around the world can come together to approach a different problem. I was actually lucky enough to listen to one of the presentations about the moon, the problem I had specialized on, from a group that came all the way from China. Seeing the different technical approaches was super interesting to me,” said Coman.
To future Andover participants competing in YPT, Yang emphasized the value of contextualizing the tournament as a learning experience rather than seeking a favorable outcome.
“Make the most out of it and don’t think of it as a very competitive sort of thing. Think of it as an opportunity to grow, and just enjoy it because honestly, the most fun part about the competition is not ultimately [seeing] your ranking but [instead] the process of it,” said Yang.
