Junedalsskolan with secondary school students Oscar Krigsman, Ester Levander and Sven Åkestedt won the district final of Pythagoras Quest, held at the School of Engineering at Jönköping University.

District final of national math competition at JTH

21 secondary school students from Jönköping County participated in the district final of the national math competition Pythagoras Quest, held at the School of Engineering (JTH) at Jönköping University (JU) on January 31.

The winning team was from Junedalsskolan in Jönköping, which thus advances to the national final of Pythagoras Quest.

Susan Le, Federico Lopez Santos, and Sture Sjögren from Bäckaskolan in Gnosjö thought it was fun to come to JTH and that it seemed to be a good school. ‘Cool to be here’, says Sture Sjögren.

The winning team from Junedalsskolan consists of Oscar Krigsman, Ester Levander and Sven Åkestedt.

"It feels great that we won! I think the road to success for us was that we have prepared well both at school and at home. Also, we divided the tasks in the test between us to be more efficient, says Sven Åkestedt.

The trio is looking forward to the national final of Pythagoras Quest, which will be held at Malmö Borgarskola at the end of May, and will start looking at previous years' final tasks to come well prepared for that competition too. After high school, they all plan to continue studying engineering.

"I like that as an engineer you develop solutions to develop and improve things," says Sven Åkestedt.

Without calculators and formula sheets

Pythagoras Quest is held annually and involves secondary school students solving a number of math problems in time, without calculators or formula sheets. The team from Bäckaskolan in Gnosjö had the tactic of discussing the tasks as much as possible and trying to simplify instead of complicating.

"It's fun to compete in math and to come to JTH because you might study here in the future," says Sture Sjögren from Bäckaskolan.

"Something I am more than happy to contribute to"

This was the first time that JTH hosted Pythagoras Quest, which usually takes place at Per Brahegymnasiet in Jönköping.

"When we were asked to host the competition, I thought it was a fun and good idea. Any initiative that helps to increase interest in mathematics is very positive and something I am more than happy to contribute to. It would be fun to organize the competition again, says Mikael Palmgren, lecturer in mathematics at JTH and coordinator of the district final at JTH.

He enjoyed meeting students who are interested in mathematics and hoped that they and their teachers were satisfied with the event. The students' results were corrected by math teachers at JTH and in the meantime, the students and their teachers were invited to lunch on campus. This was followed by a prize-giving and closing ceremony in the gallery at JTH.

Mikael Palmgren, lecturer in mathematics at JTH, hopes that the competition can lead to greater interest in technology and in studying at JTH.

Facts

Pythagoras Quest is an initiative from the Chamber of Commerce and Malmö Borgarskola to highlight the importance of being good at math for the workforce of the future.