Activities

Bake-off

Our annual maths baking competition will test your baking skills! There'll be a cake/baked good/confection contest, judged by a randomly selected panel, and anyone attending the conference is welcome to enter. Entry to the competition is free (well, more strictly, it'll cost you approximately one cake or equivalent).

The rules are:

• You must bake/otherwise create a mathematically interesting cake/baked good/confection, and bring it with you to the Gathering. (Please also bring a knife to cut it into portions; we'll provide serving plates.)
• The judging will be in three categories: best flavour, best presentation, and best maths.
• The first will reward a well-made, delicious item; the second will reward the item which has been decorated the most beautifully and looks most like what it's supposed to be; and the third will reward the most ingenious mathematical theming.

As with all the competitions, when you submit your entry, please inform an organiser so they can mark down who has submitted what, but please leave your entry anonymous.

Any food not required for judging purposes will be distributed among the MathsJam Gathering attendees, so please bring details of any allergens your entry contains so they can be labelled.

Remote attendees are also welcome to create mathematical baked goods, and your entries can be judged in the second and third categories if you send a photo/video to bakeoff@mathsjam.com for us to show to the judges (by the first coffee break on Sunday).

If you have any questions about the bake-off, please email bakeoff@mathsjam.com.

MathsJam Competition Competition

We also run an annual competition competition, to which attendees are invited to submit a competition, which the other attendees can enter.

Entries to the Competition Competition must be in the form of an A5 photocopied sheet, single-sided and printed in black and white.

• Minimum font size for all text on the sheet must be 18pt
• The sheet must contain space for the competition entrants to write their answer(s) and their name
• A sealed container must be provided with a slot for completed entries, clearly labelled with the competition it's for
• Any type of competition is permitted as long as it can be judged by the setter (or a winner randomly chosen from the correct entries)
• Each competition must provide a prize, but that prize must be worth less than £1 on the open market.

Competitions must be placed on the competition competition table by the Saturday lunchtime, and be available for people to enter until the Sunday morning coffee break, when judging will occur. Entrants must provide 100 copies of their competition sheet (if you don't have access to a photocopier, we can help to arrange this - contact compcomp@mathsjam.com), and a box as described above for entries.

As with all the competitions, when you submit your entry, please inform an organiser so they can mark down who has submitted what, but please leave your entry anonymous. Entries to the individual competitions within the competition competition should not be anonymous, and you should include space for entrants to write their name.

There will be three prizes for the competition competition:

• best competition, as chosen by the judges;
• popular vote winner ('people's choice'): awarded to the competition which receives the most (genuine) entries; and
• best attempt at circumvention of the rules while still strictly sticking to the rules.

The judging panel will be chosen randomly from non-competition-entering MathsJam attendees.

Remote attendees will also be able to enter the Competition Competition: email your PDF to compcomp@mathsjam.com before 30th October and we can print copies to take along.

Remote attendees can also enter the competitions within the Competition Competition: we'll take photos of each of the competition entry sheets, and place a link in the Gather space (on the appropriate table). There will be a form to submit your entries, and and any remote entries received will be actualised (by a skilled actualiser with a pen) and entered into the competition before they close.

MathsJamJam

On the Saturday evening we will gather with our instruments and voices for a singalong of popular songs that we've improved by rewriting them to be about maths.

You're welcome to just come along and listen, and you can join in in any or all of these ways:

• submit mathematical lyrics for a song of your choice by sending them to Sam Hartburn
• bring your own guitar/ukulele/grand piano/triangle/whatever and play along - we'll provide chord sheets for all the songs
• sing along!

Check out the lyrics from previous years.

You can also see videos of four songs from 2018.

Remote attendees will be able to watch a livestream of the MathsJam Jam (tech permitting) and will also be able to sing along from home (we can't stop you, and wouldn't want to).

Tables at the back

At the back of the room, we place two tables - one is for things you're happy for people to take away with them, and the other is for things you're happy for people to play with and not take away. This means attendees can bring along puzzles, handouts, toys, games, knitted items and anything else they want to share with people.

2022's tables featured the Spigot Tap, which dispensed digits of pi.

There will be a remote analogue of the Tables at the Back of the Room in the Gather space, where we will attempt to add photos of any handouts/relevant links. If you are a remote attendee and would like to contribute something to the in-person tables (a printout, or something you're happy to post beforehand) please email gathering@mathsjam.com and we can arrange it.

Occasionally contribiutors to the 'things to take' table have requested a small donation in a collection box, either to cover the costs of producing the items, or for charity. This is strictly optional.