Team Maths Challenge National Finals
Following our narrow victory at the Regional Finals of the Team Maths Challenge back in March, our team - consisting of Wojtek, Titus, Dexter and me - qualified for the Team Maths Challenge National Finals, held in June at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London.
The day began with a Poster Round on the geometry of plants. This involved researching and presenting topics such as Leonardo’s rule of trees, phyllotactic ratios, the golden ratio, and Fibonacci numbers, all of which were related to the ways in which plants have adapted over time to improve their chances of survival. It was an interesting way to start the event and encouraged us to think about how maths connects to patterns in nature.
We then moved into the main rounds of the competition. In the Group Round, we had to work as a team to solve ten extremely difficult yet surprisingly engaging questions. This was clearly a step up from the conventional Group Rounds in the Regional Finals, as we were presented with each question one at a time with a time limit of six minutes each, meaning that we were unable to allocate more time for the slightly more challenging questions. Thanks to the ingenuity shown by the rest of the team, we were able to secure full marks in this round.
In the Crossnumber Round, we had to complete a crossnumber puzzle using a variety of clues provided, ranging from arithmetic calculations such as the square root of 45796 to vague hints such as "an odd number", with one mark available for each digit out of 114. We had to split into two pairs, me and Dexter, and Titus and Wojtek, with the former given the clues for the Across clues and the latter being given the Down clues. Unfortunately, we lost one mark at the very end of the round.
The Shuttle Round required us to solve linked questions in turn, again in pairs, passing answers back and forth between teammates. This meant we had to be both quick and accurate, as a mistake early on could affect later questions. We performed well but lost two marks, again at the very end of the final set of questions.
The final round, the Relay, was by far the most challenging, though we were confident due to our success in the Relay at the Regional Finals. The team was yet again split into the same pairs, with each pair working on their own section. Answers had to be passed between pairs in sequence, so the whole team needed to keep up the pace. However, we underestimated the difficulty of the questions and focused too much on the first few questions, causing us to struggle to maintain the speed required, which led to some missed questions and lost time. This contributed to a humiliating loss of 20 points in the round.
Across the four main rounds, we lost a total of 23 marks. At the end of the day, we were pleased to place 14th nationally amongst over 80 schools. Overall, it was very tough and competitive, but a hugely enjoyable experience.
Student report written by Keynes (Year 9)
