and is an exciting mathematics initiative that uses a quiz-night format. Teams of six students race against the clock to solve four intense rounds of eight challenging problems. Each round lasts for 20 minutes.

The College Maths Department run weekly workshops to expose the girls to many different problem-solving questions and techniques to prepare them for the competition.

Our Years 11 and 12 SMC team collected 23 points out 32 to receive the 5^th position from 40 teams in the South Metro area. The Years 7 and 8 team and our Years 9 and 10 team will be competing tonight at All Saints College and Trinity College.

We asked Year 11 students Kati Panich and Amber Komaromi about their experience.

What did you enjoy most about Have Sum Fun Maths?

Kati: I enjoyed the overall atmosphere and the enthusiasm towards maths on the night. It was a very enjoyable night as we were encouraged to try our best and had lots of snacks while trying to answer the questions.

Amber: The HSF Maths Competition is a really fun event; it gives you the opportunity to bond with some of the people in the year level, above or below you and it also provides a chance to socialise with students from other schools. I’ve been in the teams of HSF for a few years now and it never disappoints; every year brings a new experience and many more amazing memories. I would highly recommend HSF for those who love maths, a good challenge and the opportunity to socialise.

Were there any challenges?

Kati: I personally think the questions themselves were really difficult to solve and the level of difficulty rose with each round. The time pressure was also another influence of difficulty as we were trying to finish it during the time period.

Amber: There are always challenges brought about by HSF, however, most of them came from the questions themselves. In this case, a lot of us Year 11s struggled with some of the questions, because we didn’t know how to do them, which, being under a time constraint, can become quite a problem.

How did you overcome these challenges?

Kati: I overcame the challenges by trying new ways of approaching the questions and rereading the questions over again. I also asked the Year 12s for some help so that we could work through it together.

Amber: Luckily, many of the Year 12s knew how to handle the harder questions which came in handy, so there were a few questions where we worked with the Year 12s to solve problems together. A method that we used was splitting into pairs and allocating certain questions. Once the team had collated all of our answers, another pair would check them.