Exploring the world of Maths

Recently the MAV (Mathematical Association of Victoria) offered the chance for high achieving rural math students to participate in a virtual math camp to experience and learn about real-world applications of mathematics in the workforce.

The math camp was hosted by the mathematics education consultant Helen Haralambous, alongside the mentor companies; Ford, VSSEC, Texas Instruments and the RGA.

I worked alongside Ford, who assigned me to engineering where I worked on improving the safety technology and braking systems found in head-on collisions with different DAT level technologies.

The camp itself took place over the course of 5 days during the holidays from the 27th of September to the 1st of October, where students joined zoom presentations hosted by Mathematical/STEM based professors, who spoke about the future of our mathematical academic journeys, and the host companies who introduced their representing members and functionality of their companies.

The students were also required to break into their designated groups once or twice a day to discuss their assigned work to decide on improvements that they would elaborate on in their presentations at the end of the week.

Overall the entirety of the math camp was a blast!! I was able to meet people with similar interests and work on math problems with them while learning fundamental maths skills I will be able to bring into VCE.

I would highly recommend any Year 9 students interested in STEM to participate in the following year, and I would like to thank my math teacher, Miss Almond for referring me to the camp and giving me the chance to experience it.

John Cutajar, Year 10 Student