Brain Games Draws Academy Students to Campus

The campus of Southwestern is soon to be bombarded with the brightest and most brilliant of math students from Seventh-day Adventist academies all over the United States.  “Siege: Engines of War” is the title of Brain Games this year.  Brain Games starts today and continues until Saturday, Nov. 5.  Academy students from 18 schools across the country will have the chance to challenge their minds, and compete against others for a $9,000 first-place prize.

Schools will choose three or four top students to participate in Brain Games.  They will investigate the science of force and trajectory in relation to the historical concept of siege warfare.  Throughout the day, students must complete certain tasks under certain parameters.  These tasks include creating functional catapults, slings, trebuchets, and/or rockets.  Students must be familiar with the concepts of ballistics, such as angle, force, distance, trigonometry, and so on.

Each team has the opportunity to create a flag and a name to represent them.  Impartial judges will be picked out to choose a favorite flag.  Students need to remember that colors represent certain things, and to consider symbolism in the flags they create.

On Saturday night there will be a math competition done in the style of a game show.  The school that wins first place will receive $9,000 split into $2,000 per player and $1,000 for the school’s history, math, or science department.

“Brain games is a great opportunity to show that math can be applicable,” says Murray Cox, mathematics professor, and Brain Games coordinator.  “It’s more than X’s and numbers, it’s useful. Overall, the goal of Brain Games is to help students to gain new powers of creative thinking and problem solving.”

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