On Saturday the 3rd of June, 175 kids from the first two years of high school from all over the Netherlands came to the VU to compete in the Junior Math Olympiad (Junior Wiskunde Olympiade, JWO), organized by our junior lecturer Mark van den Bergh together with the Nederlandse Wiskunde Olympiade. Invited were those who obtained the highest score on the Kangoeroe Wedstrijd last spring.
The day started with a lecture for the children and their parents about Fourier theory by our assistant professor Thomas Rot. Then they answered the 8 questions of the first part of the olympiad. After lunch in the restaurant of the VU, they competed in the second part with 8 very challenging problems, such as the following:
"We consider the number 666....666 which consists of 2023 sixes. The square of this number has 4046 digits. How many of those digits are a 5?"
While the volunteers graded the olympiad against the clock, the children played with math puzzles provided to them by Vierkant voor Wiskunde. The day ended with the prize ceremony in which the top 10 from class 1 and the top 10 from class 2 were given a mathematical present.