The Mathelona Games

From Paul Godding:

If you dream of taking part in top sporting competitions and love doing brain-teasing puzzles, you probably enjoy a challenge, so come and sign up and take part in The MATHELONA Games.If you also enjoy Sudoku, you will love MATHELONA. The one general rule invites players to place the numbers 0 to 9 into the coloured rings so the whole line/equation works out as shown below.For example, if the middle black ring contains 6, the four other coloured rings must be filled with a number in the range 0 to 9 so that the left and right calculations both equal 6. These may involve any of the four operations:e.g. 5 + 1 = 6 = 9 3Events & MedalsStart off with the 100m event. By correctly solving two simple challenges, you win a Bronze Medal. You can then decide to either attempt to win a Bronze Medal at the next event, the 200m, or push on at 100m and continue in an attempt to win a Silver Medal.At the higher medal level, you will be playing against the clock. Complete two further, but slightly harder, challenges within 5 minutes and you will be a Silver Medal holder.At this point, the 100m Gold Medal is within your reach. Complete just one tricky challenge in a 10-minute period and youve won Gold.Once you have won at least a bronze at an event, you can move onto the next event. There are six in all; two sprint events (100m & 200m), two middle distance events (800m & 1500m) and finally two long distance events (10,000m and the legendary Marathon).As the events get longer, the challenges at the bronze/silver medal levels increase in number, as does the time allocated, but the gold level at every event involves just one difficult challenge to complete in 10 minutes.Personal Best TimesWhen you have won a medal, you will also see your Personal Best (PB) time shown. At any time, you can decide to return to that event and try to improve your PB at that level (bronze, silver or gold).How to PlayThroughout your participation in The MATHELONA Games, you have 20 numbers available when filling the coloured rings. These are 0 to 9, each of which can only be used a maximum of twice.At the Bronze Medal, you have 12 coloured rings to fill from the 20 numbers available; quite a bit of choice when choosing which numbers to utilise.At the Silver Medal, you have to fill 16 rings from your 20 numbers, and during your Gold Medal attempt, all 20 coloured rings must be filled from the maximum pot of 20 numbers, without making any mistakes!Skills NeededPlayers need to use their basic knowledge of arithmetic with a bit of logic thrown in. Those players who enjoy Sudoku will certainly enjoy MATHELONA.Teachers may also find MATHELONA useful in the classroom to improve the numeracy and arithmetic skills of their pupils while enjoying the challenge of winning medals.Calculations involve a mixture of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with the fixed target answers in the black rings ranging from 0 to 18 throughout the whole game.

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