Four Year 10 boys won every round when they took on other regional schools in the Maths Feast competition.
After being selected to represent the School in the event, the four emerged with a perfect score of 121 out of 121.
Mathematics teacher Kirtan Shah said: “This was the first time I’ve seen full marks in every round of the Maths Feast competition since I started working here in 2018. So they did really, really well: definitely something to be proud of!
“They worked so well together as a team; by building on each other’s arguments, they were able to successfully reach sensible solutions to some challenging problems. They knew what each member’s strengths were and that really helped them gain their clean sweep.”
Hadi Al-Esia, Kovid Gothi, Saim Khan and Shreyaas Sandeep travelled to St Dominic’s Sixth Form College in Harrow on the Hill for the competition run by Advanced Mathematics Support Programme – a Government-funded national initiative.
They faced four rounds: team captain Hadi said each involved “intriguing puzzles that stretched our knowledge and problem-solving skills”.
The rounds were as follows:
- What No Words? All teams were given a series of problems to solve, with the catch that they were only given diagrams. Not only did they have to work out the answer; they first had to work out what the question was!
- Four for Forty: Students were given four long problems, including logic puzzles, which all required outside-the-box problem-solving, including logic puzzles. “They were able to deftly negotiate this round by each member of the team taking the problem which suited their strengths the most,” said Mr Shah.
Card Sort: Competitors had to reimagine every 3D shape (such as cubes) to try to unravel the shortest way to pass through or over them. “This was by far the most challenging round for the team to tackle as it involved a new dimension of geometry for them – a combination of Pythagoras and 3D visualisation,” Mr Shah added. “They finished the round with less than 20 seconds to spare.” The team’s favourite problem came from this round (see picture right): competitors were asked to calculate the distance from A to B if the net [what a 3D shape looks like if opened out flat] were open for the cone.Saim said: I particularly enjoyed the card sort round – trying to reimagine and visualise the shapes in a new way was challenging but immensely rewarding too!”- Four in a Row: A relay round, with teams splitting into two pairs to solve two separate sets of questions. “Our boys were able to comfortably finish the round, with eight minutes to spare,” said Mr Shah.
Hadi said: “I’m proud of our teamwork and the dedication we showed on the day,” while his teammate Saim added: “The Maths Feast was a fantastic opportunity; the problem-solving and lateral thinking the rounds called for was a refreshing invigorating experience.”
Shankar was among 45 Year 12 mathematicians from QE to attend the annual series of lectures at The Royal Institution in London.
Puzzle expert and author Rob Eastaway looked at ‘fairness’ and ‘guilt’, telling the audience that chimpanzees have been seen to grasp the concept of fairness, refusing a treat if they felt they were receiving preferential treatment over their fellow chimps.
During breaks, the boys visited the event’s Maths Village, where they could enjoy mini-mathematical activities and meet people who use Mathematics every day at university and in commerce.
Dr Bhattacharya’s book, entitled The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann, was named a Financial Times and Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year in 2021.
In his talk, Dr Bhattacharya mentioned the Manhattan Project as well as, inter alia, von Neumann’s contributions to set theory, game theory and the development of the first programmable digital computer.
Team 4’s Water UVC bottle could thus benefit many millions across the developing world without access to safe drinking water, the boys explained in their richly illustrated, 31-page PowerPoint presentation. They even included an option for the UV lamp to be solar-powered to make the bottle viable for people who could not afford mains electricity.
Making the announcement that Team 4 had won, Assistant Head (Pupil Progress) Sarah Westcott said: “During last term’s lockdown, our usual face-to-face careers activities for Year 9 in this important period of their School careers had to be reimagined. We amended our plans so that boys could work from home, while still developing important work-related skills such as creativity, teamwork, independence and the ability to communicate their ideas.”
Question: Two congruent pentagons are each formed by removing a right-angled isosceles triangle from a square of side-length 1.
In a special lecture delivered via Zoom, Chris Budd, Professor of Applied Mathematics at Bath, first explained to the whole year group what mathematical modelling is, with contributions also coming from a number of his PhD students. In a highly illustrated presentation, he then set out modelling’s crucial role in determining the best strategy for fighting the pandemic, even drilling down into issues such as how shopping can be made safer in a pandemic.
The professor started his talk by revealing that, although not an Elizabethan, he had been born in Friern Barnet and had moved to Harrow Weald at primary school age, before going up to Cambridge to read Mathematics.
Professor Budd went on to explain how modelling has been used in the case of the Covid pandemic. There are three basic questions, he said. Firstly, how will the epidemic grow if the authorities do nothing (which was the case for the 1918 Spanish ‘flu epidemic)? Secondly, how can we stop the number of cases growing? And third, how should we change our behaviour to keep safe?
Modifying behaviour patterns is simply the most effective way to prevent the spread of Covid, which is why wearing masks, staying in closed bubbles and keeping 2m away from other people are the strategies the Government has been promoting most, he said.