The IYPT and the Ring Oiler Problem

TL;DR

The paper discusses the IYPT competition, focusing on the complex Ring Oiler problem from 2018, highlighting its challenges and the scientific engagement it fosters among high school students.

Contribution

It provides an overview of the IYPT, emphasizing the complexity of the Ring Oiler problem and its role in promoting scientific problem-solving among youth.

Findings

Ring Oiler posed significant complexity for participants.

Teams and scientists struggled to solve all subtleties of the problem.

The competition encourages advanced scientific thinking among high school students.

Abstract

The International Young Physicists' Tournament (IYPT) continued in 2018 in Beijing, China and 2019 in Warsaw, Poland with its 31\ts{st} and 32\ts{nd} editions. IYPT is a modern scientific competition for teams of high school students, also known as the Physics World Cup. It involves long time theoretical and experimental work focused on solving 17 publicly announced open ended problems in a teams of five. On top of that, teams have to present their solutions in front of other teams and scientific jury and get opposed and reviewed by their peers. Here we present a brief information about the competition with a specific focus on one of the IYPT 2018 tasks - the Ring Oiler. This seemingly simple mechanical problem appeared to be of such a complexity that even the dozens of participating teams and jurying scientists were not able to solve all of its subtleties.