March 14 indicates the International Day of Mathematics which is also known as Pi Day. This is because some of the nations follow ‘month-day-year’ format. Hence, March 14 is noted as 3/14 and the mathematical constant Pi can be rounded up to 3.14.  In line with that, the Centre for Foundation Studies (CFS) of Kampar Campus invited all the Kampar Campus Foundation students to participate in various online activities to celebrate the International Day of Mathematics in March 2021.

Some of the activities organised were Mathematics Challenge and Video-sharing. In the Video – sharing activity, a workshop titled Polygonal Origami and a talk titled ‘Traditional Mathematics Versus Modern Mathematics’ were conducted from 13 March 2021 to 31 March 2021 via Microsoft Teams.

In the ‘Polygonal Origami’ workshop, CFS Kampar lecturer Chuah Puoi Choo demonstrated to participants the methods to transform paper into various polygonal shape by pinching and folding. The objective of the workshop was to instil creativity among students. The video was viewed by a total of 219 students as of 2 April 2021. Students enjoyed making their own polygon origami and some shared the photos of their works on Microsoft Teams.

On the other hand, CFS Kampar lecturer Chong Fook Seng delivered the talk titled ‘Traditional Mathematics Versus Modern Mathematics’. Chong shared various applications of Traditional Mathematics in different branches of science such as engineering, computing and information technology. He also shared one of the applications of Modern Mathematics— making informed business decisions via big data analysis. The objective of the talk was to inculcate the interest among students in learning Mathematics. The video was viewed by a total of 126 students as of 2 April 2021. Students were able to grasp better the applications of Mathematics in various fields after watching the video.

Apart from that, a Mathematics Challenge was also hosted by lecturers Tan Jun Bin and Suraiza Samsudin. The challenge was conducted on 13 March 2021 via Microsoft Teams. A total of 81 students registered for the challenge and the participants were required to solve 20 mathematical problems ranging from calculus to statistics in 30 minutes. Students were thrilled during the competition and had fun answering Mathematics quiz questions as they were not just challenged to answer correctly but also quickly. Winners of the challenge were Foundation in Arts student Alvin Tam Yun Jie, Foundation in Science student Foo Chuan Liang and Foundation in Arts student Micoud Wang Di Wen.