By Zhuang Jianning 17S06E (Chairman), Kenneth Hong 17S06Q (Vice-Chairman) and Wang Ziwei 17S06F (Treasurer)
Here is a fun exercise: Write an expression for the volume of a pizza with height “a” and radius “z”
Another one: Can you spot the sequence in this photo?
If you have decided to read on despite the lame exercises my vice-chairman included above, we take it that you have compounded your interest for our Mathematics Club. You don’t need to be a brilliant mathematician to join our club, the only prerequisite is to be genuinely passionate and have fun during our sessions. Even if you find calculus slightly derivative, trigonometry too graphic, or if you aren’t that partial to fractions, worry not because we guarantee our variety of activities each week will engage every member!
Mathematics Club hold official sessions once a week, usually on Tuesdays. Being a student led CCA, our 90 minute sessions can range from buzzer quizzes among the members, origami folding workshops, to interesting math topics which you will have a say in deciding.
Why Mathematics Club is the best academic CCA (Source: xkcd.com)
Being an academic CCA, complementing these fun sessions, there will also be serious training sessions. Some sessions in Term 1 and 2 will focus on competition math and preparation for SMO. We will cover all major topics in Olympiad math, such as Algebra, Combinatorics, Geometry and Number Theory. These sessions are also planned in tandem with H3 Math, so you can be rest assured they will be legit :)
By paying attention during these sessions, your possibilities to represent Raffles in Math competitions are unbounded! Our major competition, the Singapore Mathematical Olympiad (SMO), is held on a yearly interval in June. However, tangential to this, there are many other competition opportunities such as the Shanghai TI Cup Math Contest, the American Mathematics Contest (AMC), and the Singapore International Mathematics Challenge (SIMC). Achievements in such competitions would boost the cognitive domain of your Raffles Diploma, but everyone agrees the most important thing is to bring glory to RI and Singapore, am I right?
And then there are people like Ma Zhao Yu who get 8th in the world.
Apart from Mathematics Competitions, there are also many interesting highlights for next year. There will be learning journeys to NUS which aims to introduce students to NUS’ Mathematics course, as well as to create awareness on the relevance and applications of mathematics. There will also be many recreational sessions interspersed among competitive sessions which will enrich and broaden your view of Mathematics. Also look forward to Mathematical research, Inter House Competitions and camps!
Who doesn’t love learning journeys!
To sum it all up, we subtract any questions or doubts and multiply happiness exponentially, to give every member the best experience that he/she will have and retain for an infinite amount of time!
Answer to exercises:
1. Pi z z a
2. 1,1,2,3,5,8 form the Fibonacci sequence, an integer sequence defined by a recurrence relation
