BSB is the Guinness World RecordTM Holder for "The Largest Mathematical Jigsaw Puzzle"

On 30th October, 2015, a 24 hour ‘MATHathon’ started at 4pm and approximately 100 of our finest young minds aged 11-18 (with a few older staff members with an average age of 45.5 years) in our Secondary School worked on the monster task of assembling a mathematical jigsaw puzzle consisting of 5200 pieces, which totalled nearly 8000 maths problems. And that was after a regular 7-hour school day! In the end, we smashed the previous record three-and-a-half-fold. The attempt finished on Saturday 31st October at 4pm with some very happy participants.

Students were fed and watered – 25 giant pizzas, 6 boxes of muesli, 6 litres of milk, 50 bananas and other pieces of fruit and a myriad of other  local delicacies and drinks kept everyone energized while we spent a whole night with friends completing highly demanding mathematical tasks. There were Year 7 students working together with Year 10 students and Year 12 students completing university-level mathematics. Wow!

All of this was done in the name of charity; we raised approximately 23000 RMB through sponsorship of the students. This money will be used to provide transport for 30+ students at a local deaf-and-mute school to visit Beijing sites and take part in a range of activities which they would otherwise not be able to do.

Thank you all for your support and generosity, and a massive thank-you to all the students who put so much effort in turning this year’s MATHathon into a brilliant success story. If anyone is up for it, maybe we can finally assemble the whole of the puzzle next year…! And get another record!

 Please see the link from Guinness World Records below.

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/375417-largest-mathematical-jigsaw-puzzle

Update from: Mr Simon Alles, Mathematics teacher, Maths World Record Attempt coordinator