The Austrian Young Physicists' Tournament (AYPT) is an Austrian competition among teams of secondary school students in their ability to solve complicated scientific problems, to present solutions to these problems and to defend them in scientific discussions called "Physics Fights". It is executed in English language.
The AYPT serves as a national qualification tournament for the International Young Physicists' Tournament (IYPT).
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Since 1999 the AYPT is organized annually by the association AYPT - Forschungsforum junger Physiker (English: "AYPT - Research Forum of Young Physicists").
In July 2006 this association has been officially recognized by the International Organizing Committee of the IYPT as the only national Young Physicists' Tournament Association in Austria. That means that this association is the only corporate entity to be allowed to nominate an Austrian National Team for the IYPT.
The course of the tournament is almost identical to that of the IYPT. Details can be found there.
The Problems for the AYPT are the same as for the IYPT. According to the international regulations these problems may be used for national competitions.
Each Austrian secondary High School may send one or more teams to the AYPT. Teams consisting of students from different schools are also possible. In addition the Organizing Committee invites several foreign guest teams to make the competition more interesting. The following countries have sent teams to the AYPT over the last years: Poland, Slovakia, Italy, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Turkey, Russia, Iran, Belarus.
The Austrian National Team is then formed in the following way: The Executive Committee of the association nominates those students who gave the best performance during the competition. That means that not the winning teams is nominated as a whole but a new team is formed. The new team then participates in several preparatoy seminars before competing in the IYPT.
For the next few years the AYPT is scheduled to take place in Leoben.