By Alesha Capone
The numbers add up at Lumen Christi Catholic Primary School in Point Cook.
Nineteen pupils from the school received prizes in the Mathematical Association of Victoria’s annual Maths Talent Quest earlier this year, including 11 youngsters who were awarded high distinctions or distinctions.
Nine-year-old pupils Camilo and Ambrose said they were “surprised” and “very happy” to place first in the competition, in the category of year 3 group projects.
The pair entered a project called The Soccer Ball, for which they calculated that soccer balls are “truncated icosahedrons” with 60 vertices, 32 faces and 90 edges.
Their project went on to win a first place at the National Mathematics Talent Quest last month.
Ambrose said he and Camilo decided on the idea for their project because they both liked soccer, and hope to become professional players in the future.
“It was pretty easy because we used a lot of strategy, but there was a lot of work so we took a long time,” Camilo said.
Last year, the boys also placed first in the state Maths Talent Quest for a project in which they counted all the squares on a chess board.
