How to Participate

Overview

To participate, send diverse and original solutions to the problems from our List of Problems.

Prizes will be awarded for the entries that include many different solutions, solutions that are novel, and solutions that are clearly explained. We are interested in creative solutions and intuitive explanations. We encourage you to use methods from different areas of Maths and to think of solutions for people with different levels of sophistication.

An example

Problem: 'What is the probability that the sum of two dice is more than 7?'

Some of the approaches to solve this problem are below (click to enlarge):


You can download the full example in here.

Instructions

  1. Select one of the problems from our List of Problems page.
  2. Find as many creative and original ways to solve the problem as you can. Methods do not have to produce exact solutions. Approximate solutions are acceptable. Remember to include clear explanations of your solutions.
  3. You can record the solutions for any problem using one of the templates below, or you can use your own template. Either way you can do it on a computer, or by hand (and scan it).
  4. Upload your document in the Send Your Entry page. This can be a PDF, text, Word, or an image file.

We wish to understand your reasoning process, so please try to add explanations for every step in your solutions; especially those parts that are novel or unexpected.

Download: Word Template
Download: PDF Template


Don’t worry about making the presentation of the solution really neat and tidy; as long as we can follow how you did it, your efforts will be a welcome contribution.

Prize categories & rules

The prize categories and rules can be seen in here.