The Aperiodical 

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21X competition – results

By Katie Steckles. Posted November 17, 2023



A while ago we announced a competition to win a copy of algebraic blackjack game 21X, which was recently successful on Kickstarter, smashing its funding target by an order of magnitude. If you’d like to pre-order a copy of the game, you can sign up to be notified when that’s possible.

We had over 30 entries in the competition, of which 20 achieved correct answers, and have picked a random set of winners to pass on to Naylor Games, who should be in touch with them by email in the next few days.

For anyone interested in seeing the answers, here’s what they were. As a reminder, the challenge here is to find a value for \(x\), given that \(n\) represents the number of cards, to get the total of all the card values closest to 21.

British Science Week mathematicians poster competition

By Peter Rowlett. Posted March 10, 2022



I wrote a mathematics-themed competition for British Science Week, which is a UK-wide event lasting ten days taking place this month.

The competition calls for individuals or groups to research the life and/or work of a mathematician and produce a poster to share their findings. The six mathematicians available to choose from are:

Best Illusion of the Year Contest – Final

By Katie Steckles. Posted December 17, 2021



Since we know you’ll enjoy looking at some weird and wonderful illusion videos, we thought we’d share that the Best Illusion of the Year Contest has posted its 2021 finalists, and you can vote for the winner on their website.

Fractal Bunting Competition – results

By Katie Steckles. Posted November 3, 2020



A few weeks ago, we announced a competition to design some fractal bunting, without giving too much of a particular guide as to what we were looking for, in order to spark people’s creativity and get them making (or imagining) some lovely mathematical decorations with which to festoon things. We had a large range of types of entry, and it’s given us some inspiration for how we might (infinitely) brighten up the place.

Since we know much more about fractals than we do about design, we asked illustrator Hana Ayoob to help judge the entries on their aesthetic merit, and here we present some of our favourite entries, along with the announcement of the winner.

Upcoming Mathematical Events/Competitions in October 2020

By Katie Steckles. Posted October 1, 2020

Here’s a round-up of some mathematical events and competitions that might be of interest, happening from October.

Aperiodical Design Competition: Fractal Bunting

By Katie Steckles. Posted September 22, 2020

Since people might be looking for something distracting they can do at home around now, we’re running another fun competition to keep you occupied – much like our π-ku poetry competition in July, we’re looking for anyone who has a spare slice of brain to come up with a design for our fractal bunting competition.



π-ku Poetry Competition – Results

By Katie Steckles. Posted July 17, 2020



A few weeks ago, we asked you to write some mathematical poetry – π-ku, which are a bit like Haiku but instead of the structure 5-7-5, they use the more classical 3-1-4 format (and it doesn’t just have to be syllables – valid π-ku can also use 3, 1 and 4 words on each line, if you prefer).

You responded in large quantities – across Twitter and email, we received over 100 entries, from fun ditties to serious, beautiful poems. Since none of us here at the Aperiodical are particularly well-versed (pun intended) in poetry, we consulted maths/poetry aficionado and special guest judge JoAnne Growney, who runs a blog collating mathematical poems over at Poetry With Mathematics.