By Ruby Bentley

On Wednesday 24th of August, West Rolleston had two teams enter in the annual Cantamath competition at Christchurch Arena. We entered one team in the year 7 category (Emily, Joshy, Avi and Cooper) and one year 8 category (Ruby, Josh, Conner and Arthur).

The competition works by each team having a designated runner, for year 7 that was Joshy, and for year 8, Conner. These runners are assigned a marker based on their position in the mass of schools on the floor. At the beginning of the competition, the assigned marker gives each runner an envelope with the first of twenty questions, and after this question has been solved by the team, the runner takes the slip with the question and answer on it and runs a lap of the crowd of tables, and brings the slip back to the marker. If the answer is correct, the marker will say yes and hand the runner the next question, if not the runner must run back to their table and the team must try again. This process repeats itself until the full 30 minutes is up.

Although our teams didn’t come first, they did exceptionally well. After the 30 minutes were up, the year 7 team finished with 35 points, and the year 8 team with 65 points. We are all extremely proud of these teams! See the attached photos and one of the question to try, for an insight on this intense maths competition!