The Trinity College School Math Contest Club entered the Canadian Team Mathematics Contest on April 17th at Pickering College. There were 15 teams of six students from a variety of schools. The TCS competitors from all grades worked hard and showed off their skills of problem-solving and imagination. There were three rounds of competition and the final score was calculated by adding up all three results.

The day started with a speech from Professor Ty Ghaswala. It included many elements of the high level of math thinking and how daily things can be related to the study of mathematics.

The competition started off with a team round which required two teams to solve 25 questions in a time period of 45 minutes. The questions got harder in the end and it was a great challenge for both teams from TCS. 

The second round was an individual round. All students were separated and solved 10 questions in total within 45 minutes. In this round, Nicolas Shi was one of the four students who got a perfect score in the entire event. 

The third round was the most challenging round, the relay round. In this part, each group of six students is separated into two groups of three students. The three students will then receive one question each to solve. However, the number of two students’ problems is determined by the answer of the students before them. Meaning that, if one of the answers is wrong in either the first or second student’s response, the end result will be wrong. TCS students thought hard and gained much experience from this.

At the end of the day, TCS’s Team Polar Bear was first place overall out of 15 teams, winning the competition with a score of 162 out of 200, while the second and third place teams were in the 150s. This success is truly appreciated by the students as they worked hard for this result. Moreover, this will lead to further improvement and a bright future for the path of the TCS Math Contest Club. Way to go!

- By Nicolas Shi, Grade 10 student