George School at USAYPT 2026

Zoë Mir

On January 31st, the George School Young Physicists Team competed at Phillips Academy Andover in the United States Invitational Young Physicists Tournament (USIYPT), organized by the United States Association for Young Physicists Tournaments (USAYPT). Comprising the team was Team Lead Ethan Huang ‘27, presenting Photometry of Flashbulbs; presenters Haree Kumar ‘27 and Bach Nguyen ‘27, researching the Euler-Eytelwein Equation and Multi-Bounce Kinematics, respectively; and scouts Daniel Shen ‘27 and Kallon Li ‘27. Additionally, research assistance was given by Elsie Felix ‘26 in Photometry and Mitch Wu ‘26 in Kinematics. Profound gratitude is also owed to faculty advisors Alison Leonard and Walter Stephenson for their generous support.
Despite numerous difficulties throughout the year with club participation and scheduling issues, the GS squad was able to travel to Boston on the eve of the competition. The team presented the three aforementioned research problems, taking their one allotted “rejection” on Eddy Currents. They earned respectable scores for both their presentation and opposition sections while engaging in spirited dialogue with their opponents. The GS team earned a total score of 100.5 but did not make the finals.
At the USIYPT poster session, George School selected to present their research on flashbulbs, showing how they derived temperature from crude broadband photometric data. Jurors were impressed with their methodology, which used brightness ratios, measured biases, and Planck’s law to fit the data to a calculated temperature using spreadsheet solvers. The poster was well received, receiving scores of 8s and 9s; however, George School missed out on the best poster prize, which was awarded to Cary Academy. At the conclusion of the competition, Rye County Day School came away with first prize and the Neuva School with second place, both schools having put forth outstanding research and phenomenal presentations.
The USIYPT competition was an intensive experience that allowed students to grow and engage in scientific research in ways that do not conform to a traditional classroom model. The event modelled “physics fights,” similar to professional conferences, and the George School team’s strong performance highlights the importance and depth of the STEM curriculum at GS.