More than 40 students compete in second annual Mathletics Challenge

Mathematics was the subject of the day as 41 students in Grades 7 and 8, competed in the second annual Mathletics Challenge, hosted by the Georgian Bay Chapter of Professional Engineers of Ontario.

Held Saturday, Oct. 14, at the Bruce Power Visitors' Centre, the event drew students from eight schools across the Grey-Bruce region, said organizer Rudresh Pandya, an engineer at Bruce Power. Last year was the inaugural competition which saw 34 students participate.

Bob Wells of the hosting organization, was MC for the challenge and welcomed everyone to the Bruce Power auditorium.

"It's important for young people to be interested in STEM - science, technology, engineering and math," he said. "There are a lot of good jobs in STEM."

Kincardine mayor Anne Eadie welcomed everyone to the Municipality of Kincardine and Bruce Power.

"I always found the subject of math exciting," she said. "This is a fabulous opportunity to have a great math experience. I discovered math is like music when I was learning to play the piano."

She said her son wanted to quit math but she told him to keep at it even though he struggled. He took a year off after completing high school, and then decided to go to college and take environmental engineering technology - and for that, he had to have math.

"You may not think it's important, but you will use math all you life."

Students were given the rules, allowed pens, paper and calculators, and given clickers with which to answer the questions.

After a few warm-up questions, the game was on, with the first round of questions, a break, and a second round of questions, followed by lunch, volunteer recognition, and the awards presentation.

The top three students in Grade 7, were Maisie Cottrill of Sullivan Community School in Desboro, Alexandrae Britos of St. Anthony's School in Kincardine, and Winnux Ocampo of St. Anthony's School in Kincardine.

The top three students in Grade 8, were Georgia Alpajaro of St. Joseph's School in Port Elgin, Bryan Nicholson of St. Anthony's School in Kincardine, and Shivam Karavadara of Huron Heights Public School in Kincardine.