Five A level Mathematicians had their maths knowledge tested to the max at the end of last term, when they competed in the international Ritangle Maths Competition.

Harry Chacksfield, Henry Hudson, Ewan Robson, Zac Stewart and Louis Toulmin worked as a tight team for 10 weeks in the run-up to Christmas, solving mathematical brainteasers, which were initially set each week, then every day, before the final challenge was released on Tuesday 7 December.  All the previous correct answers provided vital clues, which released new information to help solve the Final Task.

The prize for getting as far as the Final Task, was a day out at the University of York, where the students attended a warm-up lecture by Dr Ben Powell on “Surreal numbers” before settling down to the main event, when the Final Task was revealed. Mr Ball, Head of Maths at Pocklington School explained:

“Our mathletes were faced with a gruelling mixture of more questions that each gave a piece of a flow diagram. When these were put together, all of a sudden, the clues that had been collated over the previous two months made sense.  These clues, along with some cunning computer programming and cryptography gave the team a password to unlock the final monstrous question!”

The task tested the mathlete’s knowledge to the very limit as they worked on it over a course of a few days, both as a team and then as sub-teams, finally coming together to finalise their answer and put the challenge to bed. The team gave it their very best efforts, but an unfortunate incorrect assumption about a piece of the puzzle meant that their final answer was wrong, but painfully close to the solution.

Afterwards, Mr Ball commented: “Even though the team were not successful in their mission this year, they were one of relatively few schools around the globe who managed to even unlock the final stage.  They did themselves and Pocklington School very proud – Courage, Truth Trust!”

Whilst grappling with the complexities of the Ritangle Maths Competition, team member Zac Stewart, had also qualified to enter the British Mathematical Olympiad Round 1, which forms part of the selection process for the UK International Mathematical Olympiad team. Zac sat the first round in early December and performed extremely well, scoring 44 out of 60, which placed him 24^th out of 1857 candidates.  He received a medal, book prize and a place in the second round which takes place on 27^th January.

Good luck Zac!