10-year-old Brandonite earns gold medal in national math contest
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/04/2016 (3544 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A young Brandonite made quite the impression with his result on an international math exam last month.
Ten-year-old Walker Stie won the Brandon regional first place prize and was awarded a national gold medal after he finished tied for 38th out of almost 600 Canadian Grade 5 contestants on the Math Kangaroo Contest.
Stie scored 117, while the Canadian average for his age was 73.16.
He was one of 20 local students, from Grade 1 to Grade 12, to write the test. It was made available locally for the first time by Brandon University computer science Prof. Gautam Srivastava in late March.
“I think it’s amazing that this kid that probably didn’t think much of a math contest this year gets to win a national medal. That’s what it’s about at the end of the day, finding these gems in the rough,” Srivastava said.
The contest is available in French and English in six levels: grades 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10 and 11-12. The contest is self-guided, although several contestants prepare in advance.
Walker said he felt confident after he handed in his test.
“I felt good because I went over the questions, then I went over them again and again and I felt like because of that I did well,” he said on Thursday after learning of his score.
The École Harrison Grade 5 student spends time honing his special skill with Doug Pickering, another BU mathematics and computer science professor.
“On some weekends, we go to Forbidden Flavours (coffee shop) and we talk about math and we hang out together.”
Walker said he’s also interested in geography and science at school — “except biology. I don’t like biology.”
He’ll receive his gold medal from Kangaroo Math for his performance.
Other regional first places won by local students included Brody Tiel (Grade 4), Shashvat Varma (Grade 8), Aryan Vimalkumar Patel (Grade 9) and Yiding Zhang (Grade 10). They’ll be recognized at a ceremony in September, Srivastava said.
» tbateman@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @tombatemann