14 hours of maths in M3 Modelling Challenge

Early in the morning of Saturday, 2 March, Year 12 students Steven B, Thomas B, Tymon T, Uri M, William D, Elena W, Abhipoorna S, Kalman V and Franek M, and Year 13 students Alexandros K, Simon H, Arina S, Anastasia S, Nikolai M and Nicholas arrived at the school ready for a long and intense mathsy day. The annual M3 Modelling Challenge was taking place.

At 8:00, all three groups started their problem and a 14-hour timer began to tick down. Their problem: To make a model that predicts the indoor temperature of any non-air-conditioned dwelling during a heat wave over a 24-hour period in the cities of Memphis or Birmingham. Even repeating the problem here makes my skin itch of how exciting it can be to spend 14 hours doing this question.

Two hours in, morale was oscillating like a sine wave. Sometimes the students were asking why they had chosen to participate in this beautiful challenge, and other times they were convinced they were on the brink of a mathematical breakthrough.

Four hours in, at 12:00, coffee and tea started to replace their blood. Time continued ticking. One group decided to start again from scratch, unhappy with their progress. Another group lost part of their work after a smartboard decided to take a nap.

Around 18:00, despair started to settle in. Most students were unable to hide their stress, and the whiteboards were full of numbers, equations, ideas and formulas. We requested a much-needed pizza break, because nothing solves complex mathematical problems like a slice of Margherita.

By 20:00, communication had slowed to a crawl. Most sleep-deprived, foggy-brained participants were fully focused on their own work. Teamwork had officially died.

By 22:00, with less than 10 minutes to spare, three beautiful reports were created and submitted, and our local heroes headed home.

All students survived.

Mission accomplished.

– By Jesus Regueira‑Liñares, Head of Faculty (Mathematics and Computer Science)