Secondary FOBISIA Mathematics Competition

Secondary FOBISIA Mathematics Competition

Reflections on our trip to KL for the Maths Fobisia Competition

Day 1: Thursday 25th February – Everyone gathered at KK International Airport, excited to be going to KL for the Fobisia Maths competition. Our Air Asia flight was smooth. We had lots of fun chatting during the flight. This year’s completion was hosted by ELC International School in Selangor. KIS had 8 participants – three from year 8 and five from year 7, and we were accompanied by Ms Semehen. After landing at KLIA, we waited a while at the airport for all the other participants from various countries. Then our bus journeyed to The Saujana Hotel Kuala Lumpur in Subang.

A welcome reception at the ballroom greeted all the participating schools when we arrived. It was nice meeting with so many people. We were all exhausted after the Welcome Ceremony and we had a good night’s rest.

Day 2: Friday 26th February – After a good sleep, we had a delicious buffet breakfast. Everyone thought it was a good spread of food and we enjoyed it. After enjoying the food, we were ready for the competition. The first round of the competition is Individual. This meant we had to work on our own. It was a question and answer sheet.

After the first round, we had a 10 minute break. This went so quickly and we were back to continue the competition. Round 2 was called Logic Puzzle. This involved a team of 4. This was followed by Puzzle Strategy, also a team event. Lunch was a welcome break from the competition. We felt it was challenging but at the same time fun and rewarding.

After lunch, we had an interesting session when the schools’ participants were mixed up in a Mingle Round. This was great fun for us, getting to know more friends from other schools, as we worked in totally different teams. The last round started after a short break; it was called Math Trail. For this round we were back with our own school team mates.

After 4 rounds of competition, we were looking forward to going back to the hotel. Dinner and then a KL City Tour was on the schedule. We had a good time touring the city sights and taking lots of photos and selfies and chatting with friends. Time flew by and soon we were back in the hotel, and back in our beds, ready for a good night’s rest.

It was an exhausting but really great day. We were looking forward to day 3!!

Day 3: The third day, and also the last. Some of us were tired because of last night but we freshened up before our 5th and 6th round. These were Data Handling and Cross Number. In Data Handling they gave each team two dice. We had to examine the dice carefully and to tell if they are fair. Our report needed a prediction, a discussion, a result and a conclusion. While examining the dice, we found that one had a chipped corner. We didn’t know if this was on purpose or not but then relised they wouldn’t give a one-hour test just to find the obvious, so we stuck to the idea that all the teams had a chipped dice. It seemed that the broken corner did make a difference and we concluded that it was not fair. After the test, we immediately moved to Round 6, Cross Number. It was basically a crossword puzzle but with numbers. We had to split into pairs, one doing the DOWN puzzles and one doing the UP puzzles. The only thing we could tell each other are the answers each of us got, which would later help in other questions in that test.

Round 7 was called Pass It Across and we were split up into pairs again. Both our teams changed their pairs. This was a game where one pair had to answer a question and their answer was used in the second question, which would answered by the second pair. Their answer went back to the first pair who answered the third question. Then, the second pair answered the fourth. There were only four questions but there were four sets of them, with only 8 minutes to finish a set. After our 7th Round we had a nice lunch and got ready for our last round.

Our last round was all about construction. We get a set of straws, a pair of scissors and transparent tape. We had to build a simple bridge. Although the supervisors were marking us on teamwork, creativity (design) and how much weight the bridge could carry, all the teams from the various countries had great ideas and we did our best, too.

We were relieved when we finally had two full hours of free time. We relaxed in our rooms and got ready for our delicious dinner. All the schools were thanked and were given a flag of their own school. Two of us got medals which made all of us proud.

While having dinner we saw a performing magician/comedian who did all sorts of cool magic tricks. We also witnessed an amazing light show where people wore costumes with light tubes in a blackout. They danced with the flashing lights and a pointer that shot lasers from both sides. It definitely reminded you of Star Wars. We continued the night with a disco which we thoroughly enjoyed.

It was a great experience to see how many schools there were at the Fobisia who were smart, and to see that this was just a fraction of the Earth. It was great fun and we were happy to be a part of such an amazing competition and experience.

It was a great event and we will remember it for a long time.

by Bobby (8C) and Suraj (8C)