A group of CFBS Year 7 – 9 students took part in The Rising Mathematicians Festival at King’s College University, Strand Campus, on Thursday 8th May. It started with students being paired off to solve a few maths rhyme puzzles before the main activity started and all students arrived.
Once all groups were together the groups were split into 2 teams and played a strategy involving a hexagonal grid and basic multiplication. The games started out slow but heated up quickly when blocking needed to be done and some fast mental maths being done. Students became more adventurous, articulated their ideas whilst also being accepting others thoughts. The three As of Axioms behaviours.
The final round involved the whole group of creating a connected line of hexagons solving longer problems. The students worked well in teams supporting each other and delegating problem solving and it was wonderful to see all students work collaboratively.
A campus tour followed, with the group estimating the number of people that could fit in the entrance hall, working well together to get it a sensible estimate and were around 5% off the correct answer. They were also tasked with estimating the height of the building using a clinometer (a protractor with a string and a weight).
After lunch followed a lecture about Magic squares (every number in a row or column and diagonal adds to the same number) and an algorithm that will always give a magic square. The algorithm involved “wrapping around” a square which led to writing the square on a donut and the use of topology (a branch of maths involving spaces that remain unchanged with continuous deformations) in solving the problem.