Scotch College

The Australian Maths Competition

The Australian Maths Competition for the Westpac Awards is the Largest Mathematics competition of its kind in the world. This year there were 490,000 entries from around the world and of these, 388,000 were from 2530 Australian Secondary schools.

On Monday, 5 November, 2001, at Old Parliament House in Canberra, the Australian competition winners were presented their medals. Of the thirty-one Australian medal winners, fourteen were from the Junior division (Years 7 and 8), two were from Victoria being Sam Chow and Christopher Sia, from Year 8, Scotch College. That any school has one student who receives a medal is quite an achievement. That Scotch had two, is a particularly outstanding achievement and a great honour for the boys. It is a result of hard work and many hours of trying to solve difficult mathematical problems. Our congratulations to both boys.

Sam and Christopher have been a part of a small group of students who have worked with two maths mentors, Daniel Matthews (Class of '98) and Norman Do, both from University of Melbourne.

The mentors provide the students with mathematical problem solving and enrichment sessions twice weekly throughout the year, and from these sessions students often go on to equal the achievement of Sam and Christopher.

8B History and Medieval models in action

Year 8 boys are able to produce models as a part of their work for the Medieval History Research Project and the efforts of the boys in 8B have been outstanding this semester.

Shown right is Sam Digby, demonstrating to the class his extraordinarily accurate working model of a mangonel siege engine which is capable of flinging a marble more than twenty-eight metres! Sam conducted very thorough research into medieval siege weapons and developed precise plans before constructing his model.

Iain Wiebenga also put many hours of work into his impressive figure of a Crusading Knight. He produced the chain mail protecting the Knight's upper chest by using pliers to join together hundreds of steel ringlets and has the blisters on his hands to prove it.

Oliver Blake investigated the role of Ninjas in feudal Japan and he fashioned many strands of fine wire to create a figure that he dressed in authentic looking attire. Oliver's Ninja communicates most effectively the lethal movement of an assassin.

The English longbow was the subject of Angus Tyers' research. In addition to his written report, Angus produced a thoroughly detailed miniature of an archer armed with the famous longbow, which was used by English armies with such devastating effect in the later Middle Ages. Exciting and splendid work from all of these boys!

Guy Mylecharane researched Viking ships and was particularly interested in their construction. His model represents the type of longship used by the Vikings in their coastal raids.

Mr Ken Fisher
Head of Year