Work Hard, Play Harder2017-12-22   Author : Florence Qian (K5)

"Strong convictions precede great actions" that in our case might be manifested as “valid answers” precede “fast running”. On December 22nd 2017, Mr. Brent Michie and Ms. SuzieMichie with the Math department successfully held our first inter-House Mathex competition in the school gym. Mathex is a fun New Zealand Math competition that involves both problem solving in math and running. Students completed algebra, geometry, trigonometry and probability problems and sprinted across the gym to the judges to have their accuracy checked.

The Math department had been designing the game court and preparing for the Mathex for weeks, and the event would not be smoothly held without all the help from the staffs, school prefects and student volunteers. With the synergy of all, we set up the colourful game court with clear indications of the direction of running to prevent any accident or injury during the game. The school prefects carefully instructed the student volunteers about the rules of refereeing and scoring before the game; meanwhile, staffs dressed as Santas gave out a vivid, thrilling demonstration of the rules of Mathex to all the participants.

From students’ furrowed eyebrows, we could observe how the participants were mentally challenged and physically exhausted. Amid the students’ vibrant discussions and a tremendous cheer from the audience, we could perceive how engaged and excited everyone was about this activity.

After thirty minutes of solving math problems collectively and running hectically, two teams out of the fifty-four teams stood out from the crowd. The team from Q3 consisting of Evan Pan, Leo Liu, Lo Wu and Ruby Chen held the second highest score in the competition. The team from Q6 composed of Jacky Zhao, Mike Xu, Chan Sun and Leland Wang won the first place in this inter-House Mathex competition. Congratulations to all the teams who got the trophies and the prizes!