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.

MathsCity hosts freehand circle-drawing competition for π day

By Katie Steckles. Posted March 3, 2022



To celebrate 14th March (π day), MathsCity in Leeds is hosting a competition to celebrate everyone’s favourite geometrical shape whose circumference is π times its diameter: the circle.

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.

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.

Poetry competition: π-ku

By Katie Steckles. Posted June 19, 2020



Since some people might be looking for small momentary diversions around now to take their mind off things, we’re running a little poetry competition!

Registration for 2019 Alan Turing Cryptography Competition and MathsBombe is open

By Katie Steckles. Posted December 12, 2018

The Alan Turing Cryptography Competition, now in its 7th year, is an online competition run by the University of Manchester School of Mathematics, for school students up to year 11 or equivalent. Cryptographic puzzles are released every couple of weeks and teams of up to four compete to solve the puzzles, with prizes for the fastest and other randomly selected correct entries. Registrations are open now, and the competition starts on 28th January 2019.

For sixth form pupils, there is also MathsBombe – an online competition, with two mathematical puzzles released every fortnight. The puzzles are not directly related to the A-Level syllabus but will require students to use their problem-solving skills.

Further information

Alan Turing Cryptography Competition
MathsBombe