Mathematics News

Mathscraft Excursion

On Friday August 10, Miss Frost, Nathan Sewart, Nicholas Cacayorin and I went to Walford Anglican School for Girls. We were going on a mathematics excursion, you may be thinking, “How boring,” sitting in a room doing math but it was the complete opposite. The day consisted of fun, thinking and having a great time with other like-minded students interested in Mathematics. The Mathematics that we did wasn’t like what we do in class, it wasn’t about getting the right answer but proving theorems and generalising the questions in a way very different to Mathematics in class. As you may imagine, for us this was a whole new world; our experience with Mathematics was very different to this new, interesting way of doing Mathematics. This wasn’t a day of doing Mathematics but discovering the endless possibilities achievable through Mathematics.

Most of the excursion was in the auditorium working out mathematical problems. When we arrived at Walford we were directed through a maze to reach the auditorium, (I’m surprised we found our way out). As we were running slightly late we crept to our table and listened in, thankfully they had only just started. The instructor explained that each table had an assistant to help us, they were all professors or professional mathematicians from various universities. Then we got to our first problem, it seemed rather basic as it was about cans and how to stack them. Though, we had rules that we had to follow about how we could stack them. This made it surprisingly difficult, it made us think more generally about the question and the approach we gave it. This was the main theme for the day and gave us a deeper, new understanding about how we do, and what is Mathematics.

The excursion was a fantastic experience and gave us a lot more than we had expected. The day was amazing and a privilege to go.

Nathan Sewart: "Mathscraft was an interesting and fun day, we learnt how to problem solve while having a great time."

Nicholas Cacyorin: “The problems that were given to us were not only engaging, but they also allowed us to make a start to thinking in different ways from different viewpoints. We were thinking algebraically, in arithmetic sequences and patterns, it was a really engaging event.”

It was a great experience that we are very grateful for and hence would like to thank Miss Frost and Mr Winter for arranging the day.

Isaac Jacobs

Year 7