Great Result at National Maths Competition
On 5 February 2020, a team of four keen mathematicians representing Winchester College travelled to London in order to attend the national final of the Senior Team Mathematical Challenge.
The group was composed of top years Reuel and Max, and fourth years Sean and Rtvik. After a gruelling day of time-pressured and taxing maths, the team managed to secure 3rd place nationally out of over 1200 schools; a significant improvement on the school’s 9th place last year.
The team had previously claimed the trophy at the regional round where both pairs achieved a perfect score of 186/186. Having beaten Peter Symonds and Charterhouse, they cemented a much-coveted place at the national final in London.
The competition as a whole consists of four parts: a group round, a crossnumber round, a shuttle round and a rather chaotic relay round, which involved students sprinting across a crowded hall to deliver their solutions to their teammates. In addition, each team was required to produce a prepared poster on “Symmetry and Structure in Chemistry” to be completed on the day of the competition.
To give a taste of the sort of problems included in the challenge, this is a question from the relay round:
What is the number of distinct triangles formed by connecting 10 evenly spaced points on a circle?
The school hopes to return a team next year, and maybe do even better.
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