Wednesday 25 August 2021

Student Reflection

As a person who truly enjoys mathematics, I felt very honoured to be given the opportunity to represent St. Albans Secondary College to join the MAV Year 8 Virtual Maths Games Day, along with 7 other students. I was, and still am, incredibly grateful for the experience, as it was a day that really challenged my problem solving abilities. Despite the many challenges my team and I faced, it was still a delightful and engaging day that I would definitely join in again. We were all pleasantly surprised when the announcement of the winners came, and the two SASC teams had ranked 4th, and another tied in 6th, from a total of forty-two teams. This was a great achievement for us all.

I was also appointed the role of being a leader in my group. This came with the responsibility of writing all the answers on Google forms on behalf of my team, as well as ensuring that we were all communicating well. Coming out of the competition, my leadership skills had improved greatly, and I believe everyone has learnt how to more efficiently work together as a team. Personally, I really enjoyed the final round of the games day which was a 4×4 Kenken puzzle. In order to solve the puzzle, we worked collaboratively to decode the clues that were given – it was very satisfying when every number fit the criteria, and the puzzle was finally solved, as not many teams were able to solve this challenging puzzle.

If given the opportunity, I recommend students to participate as it is a really great and fun experience that benefits not only mathematic capabilities, but also improves leadership and teamwork skills, and strengthens problem solving abilities.

Thank you to the Maths Association of Victoria for organising this thought provoking and enjoyable event. Another special thanks to Ms Kristy Le for providing us with sufficient resources, practice questions, and for coaching both teams prior to the day and on the day. We appreciate all your efforts.

Congratulations to all the students who participated alongside me and helped achieve the outstanding results:

Ethan Bui 8C, Adora Nguyen 8C, Haybel Verma 8C, Vinh Nguyen 8C, Nhi Nguyen (Stella) 8I, Kevin To 8I and Patrick Vo 8I.

Dinda Widya Murti Ni Made 8C