Hans Woyda Maths Competition February 2023 Update

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9 Feb 2023

Han Woyda Mathematical Competition 2022-23 - KO1 Round, Harrow School v WBGS

On the 24th of January, the school’s Hans Woyda team (Rupert. Z, Ray. C, Jakub. S and Azhar. N) participated in the first round of the Hans Woyda Cup Competition. We had been drawn against Harrow School for an away match. This came about after we won our league in the group stage.

The match didn’t start too bad as after the Starters Round, we finished with the scores tied, with both teams close to a perfect score. The Geometry Round was equally fine for us as the questions regarding seven unit circles surrounded by a circle of radius 3 didn’t require any particularly difficult concepts.

After the scores were tied at the end of the Geometry Round, next was the Mental Arithmetic & Probability Round. To the team’s annoyance, it had been decided that the questions of this round would be about probability, specifically the probability of certain events occurring with a set of die. The round finished with the opposition leading by 9 points. This round seemed to underpin the rest of the match as the recovery of the difference created between us and Harrow School became the target for nearly the rest of the match.

After this, both teams faced the Team Question. Harrow School gained a perfect score finding all 18 solutions while we made one mistake in this round identifying 17 out of the 18 and the difference between the two teams increased by one further point.

The next two rounds - Calculators and Algebra & Calculus - helped to close the gap between the two teams. The Algebra Round was particularly nail-biting as there was some debate about the awarding of 2 points to us as Azhar drew correctly a sketch of a function but did not include values on the axes. After much deliberation, we were awarded the 2 points and we headed into the Race Round.

Like nearly all Hans Woyda matches, it boiled down to the final round. After a decent performance from us within the first half of this round, we were 7 points behind the opponents. We figured out that we would need to get a perfect score in the next half of the round to win. We managed to decrease the difference between the two scores but not enough to win the match.

Ultimately the match ended with a harrowing final score of 49 - 44 to Harrow and we were no longer in the competition. This year’s Hans Woyda Competition had been great fun while it lasted and we are all looking forward to next year’s competition.

Rupert Zabihi (Yr 9)