Mathemagician Badge | University

12/04/18

We decided we would do the Mathemagician Challenge Badge with our girls this term. It will take up two meetings, and this was our first. In this meeting, we decided we would do The 1001 Trick, and Magic Square from Clause 1, Map Colouring from Clause 2, and Groups from Clause 4.

We started with the 1001 trick. Each girl had been asked to bring a calculator with her and we had a few spares. We then sat them down around tables with leaders hovering nearby to help out. One leader called out the instructions and the girls followed them. They all seemed impressed by the trick, although it took two attempts for some girls to get the right answer. We didn't attempt to explain why it works, although we did show the girls that multiplying their 3 digit number by 1001 gave the same number repeated. We have quite a few yonger girls in the unit and I was the only leader who understood it so we decided that it would probably take half the evening to explain it to the girls.

We then did the magic square. Each girl was given one 5x5 grid and one 4x4 grid on a piece of paper. We then got them to work out their 8 numbers on the back before filling in the grid. This one took a lot more adult support, especially when it came to finding the 8 numbers initially. Once they had done this, they managed to fill out their 5x5 grids fairly quickly, although some of the younger ones struggled with some of the additions, despite having a calculator in front of them! They then filled out the 4x4 grid and swapped with someone nearby. One of the leaders then called out the instructions for circling and crossing out numbers in this grid. There was some confusion early on as to what numbers they should cross out. The leaders reading the instructions thought it said cross out any number in the row and the column that is equal to the circled one when in fact you had to cross out all the numbers in the same row and column. Once we had sorted that misunderstanding, the girls quite quickly found the four circled numbers and added them up. Almost all girls got the magic number, although I had to help one girl who didn't and we discovered that the initial square was wrong and that the Guide Helper had managed to say that 2+4=8. Once we sorted that, everything worked fine!

I then ran the map colouring. We had only printed the simpler shapes and we handed out a sheet to each girl and told them the instructions. I had a few girls clarify them to start with and then they all just got on with it quite happily. Most girls understood the task and completed it correctly. I think we should have also had the maps of Africa and South America so we could have said to the girls that it was possible to do in four colours or less and then challenged them to do it on the complex map.

Finally, we played a quick game of groups. It got quite hard to work out how many girls were playing as some of them wanted to finish their maps but occasionally played a round or two and then went back to colouring!

All in all, I think this evening went fairly smoothly. It was quite tiring being the most comfortable Mathematician in the room and having to answer all the girls questions, but also a great way to hopefully show girls that Maths can be fun. I'm looking forwards to doing the Clause 3 shopping game at our next meeting. So far, I would thoroughly recommend doing this badge, although having a leader or two who understand the Maths behind the tricks is a good idea.