A team of Farnborough students recently competed in the UK Maths Trust (UKMT) Senior Maths Challenge Finals, held at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London. The team consisted of first year students Luke Manning and Isaac Harrison, and second year students Harry Linehan-Hill and Callum Hobbis. The team had previously placed 1st in the regional round of the competition which took place last term.
The first round was the poster round, where students had to design a poster about the set topic, pi. The Farnborough poster included some questions relating to calculating pi and relationships to do with pi and the circle. This round went well but with such a high standard of work, it was difficult to gain an early lead.
The second round was the group round, where the team had to work together to solve some difficult problems in a limited time. The third round was the cross number where the team were split into pairs, with each pair being given a set of clues for across or downward. This round needed strong teamwork skills as the pairs could only communicate through the moderator to ask for specific things. Overall, this was the best round as the team scored just short of full marks!
The fourth round was the shuttle round, where teams were split into pairs with one of the pairs being given a question. The answer to this question was then passed onto the other pair so that they could solve a problem based on that answer and so on. This round was split into four different sections of four questions, where each section increased in difficulty. There was even more time pressure in this round as, of the limited time available, if teams were quick enough, they could also score three bonus points for submitting their answers before the whistle. The Farnborough team received full marks in the first two sections and received a significant majority of all the marks in the final two sections.
The fifth and final round was the relay. With the teams already split into pairs, pairs were separated across the hall from one another, as well as being separated from the moderator. The time limit was set so that no team could complete all the questions, so this was a game of speed in answering the questions and getting the next question. Again, this round went well but it was hard to gauge how well the team had done as the round was such a rush.
Overall, the Farnborough Team placed 38th out of the 86 teams that made it to the final. This is a great result considering that 1300 teams entered! Congratulations to Luke, Isaac, Harry and Callum – a fantastic result!
