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Nine sixth form students studying AS Maths went to a day-long mathematical extravaganza at the University College London earlier this week.

The event was hosted by Matt Parker, the stand-up comedian and founder of ‘MathsJam’, who kept the audience thoroughly entertained throughout the day.

First on stage to face the 12 different schools was Hannah Fry – TV star and best known for BBC2’s Six Degrees. Her interactive presentation taught us all about the hidden connections; from the movements of crowds, the followers on Twitter and how patterns are connected to Mathematics.

Counter intuitive

Next up was Rob Eastaway, maths author and best known for his bestseller Why do buses come in threes?. His session was about maths and the counter intuitive; when things go wrong! He asked us thought-provoking questions like ‘if you are standing in front of a vertical mirror, can you see more or less of yourself if you then take two steps back from the mirror? (Clue: the answer is not what your intuition tells you)!

After a 20 minute refresher break our students were raring to go and welcomed Lucie Green onto the stage to be interviewed. Lucie is a solar physicist and hosts BBC's Stargazing. Her stories fascinated our students as did her experience of studying activity in the atmosphere of our nearest star, the sun. She had video imagery of magnetic fields in the solar system which left our students feeling starry-eyed!

MathsSlam

The wonderful James Grime, internet maths phenomenon, was next to present to the cohort. James has toured the world with his code-breaking and is a YouTube international star in the world of maths. He showed us the history of the Rubik’s cube and got a member of the audience to try and solve it. He explained to us that there are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 rubix cube combinations with only just six moves you can make!

After an hour's lunch break there was a MathsSlam session which gave any brave sixth form students the opportunity to come up and present a maths concept to the rest of us.

The event came to an end with some juggling by Colin Wright. Colin tours around the world showing his juggling skills and new tricks in relation to mathematics and this was the students’ favourite part of the day!

After a whirlwind of mathematical learning and a plethora of expert knowledge our students certainly feel more confident in how maths can be applied to the real world, beyond just the qualification.

What students said...

From our feedback survey of the day, 66% of our students thought that Mathsfest 2016 was ‘really good’ and 33% of our students thought it was ‘excellent’.

Shaima:“I learnt that things in Maths are not always as we perceive them. I learnt that Maths is present everywhere and with everything we do."

Alex: “I enjoyed learning about the application of Maths to the real world."

Ashleigh: “I enjoyed the talk from Rob Eastaway about the counter intuitive and what happens when our intuition goes wrong."

Camilia: “I loved watching Colin Wright teach us about the links between juggling and maths. I also really enjoyed the Maths Slam where 6th form students had the chance to teach us about maths concepts."

Vicky: “I learnt today that the obvious answer is not always correct. I also learnt that you see the same amount of yourself in the mirror when you take a step back as when you’re one step forward."

Victoria Hearle

House Co-ordinator