IMA:Mathematics Today

‘Maths in the Pipeline’ was designed by TechFest-SetPoint with lecturers from the University of Aberdeen and the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen and industry professionals from BP to give mathematically able 15 year olds, S4 pupils, the opportunity to apply their mathematical skills to realistic problems encountered in the oil and gas industry. The event was able to take place due to the generous sponsorship by the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.

This whole-day event has been run, successfully, with Aberdeenshire schools for the past four years.

The location for their soirée in the Highlands was the rather grand setting of the boardrooms of the University of the Highlands and Islands Headquarters situated on the bank of the River Ness, overlooked by Inverness Castle. It was a wonderful setting for what was to be a wonderful day.

The nervous young mathematicians, from the five city schools, were initially allocated to mixed teams and to a mentor teacher to work alongside for the day. A group of industry professionals were on hand to provide additional support as they tackled the problems. The morning’s workshops began after a very interesting overview of the oil industry.

“Journey to the Centre of the Earth” involved pupils estimating the volume of an oil field, using graphs and calculations on a geological contour map. The oil field, rather frustratingly, contained a pocket of natural gas!

“The Highs and Lows of Forecasting” involved the groups in working as a team to determine the trend for the production of gas from the Chevron Captain Field. There was a considerable amount of number crunching required in producing the moving sum and thereafter the moving average, to ultimately determine whether a specific output from an oil field would ever be reached. The direct application of y = mx + c in this exercise was useful to show a real-life application to the work being done back at schools.

“The Plight of the Navigator” was the last of the morning’s tasks. Heuristic algorithm was the method employed to decide the best route for a helicopter pilot to take to visit several platforms.

The highlight of the day was the afternoon’s team Business Challenge. This was a field optimisation problem covering oil well development, production and costs. With choices to be made, health and safety to be considered and a deadline to meet this was certainly a demanding task. Each team then gave a presentation of their solution, which was viewed by Danny Alexander MP. The youngsters took this all in their stride, they enjoyed working alongside the ‘real people doing the real job’ and began to realise just how many opportunities are available to those with an ability and enthusiasm for mathematics.

This was the first outing of “Maths in the Pipeline” in the Highlands, but it will not be the last.

Brian MacDonald
Faculty Principal Teacher – Maths and Technology