On Wednesday 21 November, a team of Oundle School pupils Henry Li (18), Oscar Chung (18), Mikhail Bobkov (17) and Heidy Kang (17) competed in the Regional Final of the Senior Team Maths Challenge at the University of Northampton.
Heidy commented, “Before the competition, our team met up twice a week to do a series of different practices with our two reserve, Mercury Bao (17) and Leo Huang (17), including tackling questions from the National Finals in previous years. “
During the group round, the team worked extremely hard tackling two particularly difficult questions but were unable to complete them.
After the first round, the Oundle team were one of the five leading teams in the competition and were the first team to finish the second round of cross number. With spirits high, the team entered the last round, consisting of four relays, where they got all the questions right and were able to pick up time bonuses.
Oundle finished a close second just behind Robert Smyth Academy. Heidy concluded, “All our team members worked very well together and achieved what we deserved. Because we finished second, there is still a chance that if our score is high enough we may get into the National Finals that are being held in London in February. “
Maths teacher, Nick Turnbull commented, “The team performed really well despite being caught out by a couple of tricky questions in the first round in which they had to solve ten problems in forty minutes. They very much enjoyed the day, as did I, and we wait to see if they will qualify for the National Final as a high scoring runner-up team”