Ampleforth Maths Day took place last Tuesday (21st January), which 13 of Hunter Hall’s finest mathematicians attended. We joined three other prep schools for a day of hands-on mathematical activities.
In the morning, we took part in an inspiring architecture workshop, where pieces of doweling and elastic bands were used first of all to build a triangle and then a tetrahedron. The tetrahedrons were then combined with longer pieces of doweling (and a lot more elastic bands!) to create a bridge. The children were pointed in the right direction, whilst learning a lot about architecture, but had to do a lot of collective thinking to produce their final structure. One group successfully produced a bridge that was 4m long!
After a delicious lunch at (it was widely agreed that the chocolate and banana muffins were the best ever tasted) there was a highly entertaining talk on binary numbers and how they underpin everything to do with computers. The Ampleforth Maths Day ended with the challenge of working in teams of three to complete as many of 30 puzzles as possible in an hour.
It was well worth the long drive to Ampleforth to take part in their Maths Day and a pleasure to take such perfectly behaved children. Their enthusiasm for tackling the different mathematical challenges throughout the day was marvellous to behold.
Thank you also to Mr. ‘ Do you think I could go for a third muffin? ’ Hetherington for accompanying us.
Mr P Sturgess