Bruce Arthur Chang, a six-year-old boy from Westmount, Que., was named Grand Champion of Canada at the Universal Concept of Arithmetic System (UCMAS) Canadian national competition, which was held earlier this month in Laval.
The competition allowed participants to use their heads and an abacus to solve additions and substractions.
In only eight minutes, students had to solve 150 equations.
“I’ve been [practicing] for four months,” said Chang, who practiced every day with his father for the competition; twice daily closer to the competition.
Chang’s father, Arthur Chang, said the catalyst for his son’s love for solving equations started out simply by playing board games that involved cash transactions.
“I owed him $450 and I gave him $500 and he couldn’t give me back my change,” said Arthur.
It prompted Arthur to practice solving equations with his son and connect with UCMAS.
The organization aims to instil a love for learning maths in students. Arthur said the beginning of training was hard.
“It was interesting because it made me have to re-dial up my own brain,” said Arthur. “When we started, I was struggling to reach 150 questions in eight minutes and he (Bruce Arthur) was only at 20 or 30 questions after eight minutes.”
However, as the weeks went on, Bruce Arthur kept improving his score, speed and accuracy. Two weeks before the competition, he finally managed to answer all 150 questions.
“But yeah, never did we think he would’ve won because the compeitition is fierce,” said Arthur.
Bruce Arthur came out on top against more than 5,000 kids aged five to 13 in a category for students who are new to UCMAS.
The young mathlete said his favourite part of the challenge was “solving the equations really fast.”
Arthur said that his son grasped the speed quickly but that his biggest challenge in the competition was his accuracy and that he had to slow down.
“But you overcame it, I’m proud of you,” Arthur said to his son.
Now, the six-year-old will move on to the international competition in India held in December.
This time, he will have to answer 300 questions in the same amount of time.