Old Swinford Hospital

The first round brought a couple of notable events. Hayden F drew audible gasps from the room after dispatching Jacky Z by evaluating 2 definite integrals with no working at all, with the total match taking around 10 seconds only.   Aimee G fell to Arno S after being faster on 2 integrals as, in the process of checking her work, she failed to circle her answers quickly enough, allowing Arno enough time to finish up and take victory.  This particular result dismayed the awaiting Barney HR, who seemed eager to match up with Aimee in round 2.

So, onto round 2 where both of the Olivers, Ben and Eddie, made their mark on the competition.  Eddie sailed through his match with some very impressive work, however Ben had the misfortune to go up against one of the favourites, Sally G, and although he put up an admirable challenge she proved why she was had been given the bye past round one, taking victory in a 2-0 sweep.  Barney made extremely quick work of Arno, and Hayden continued to leave the room shook with his lightning fast style, and his knowledge of exact trigonometric values, knocking out a stunned Macey B.

The semi-finals were best of 5s.   Both featured the two favourites from Year 13, Barney and Sally, vs the two most impressive upstarts from year 12, Eddie and Hayden.  Barney matched up against Eddie, and again, although Eddie put in some very admirable work, even managing to take one of the integrals, Barney's extra experience really made the difference, with a 3-1 victory to take him to the finals.  Eddie did earn a firm handshake from Barney as recognition of the fight that was put up.  

The room was on the edge of their seats though in anticipation of the second semi.  Could Hayden, who had shown enormous potential in the early rounds, actually knock out Sally and cause the first real upset?  On the first integral, Hayden pulled off a frankly unbelievable compound angle formula for tan substitution, all in his head, only to write his answer in degrees rather than radians.  After some deliberation amongst the judges, it was controversially ruled disallowed, and Sally earned a reprieve with the score still 0-0.  Unfortunately for Hayden, this was the only opportunity that Sally would allow him, as she successfully negotiated the next 3 integrals using various tricks, knocking out the crowd favourite 3-0.

So, we ended up with the two Year 13 favourites in the final.  No prizes were being awarded but both knew that eternal bragging rights were on the line.  With the integrals getting progressively harder, after 4 rounds the score was 1-1.  The fifth and final integral would decide all.  By this point Sally had arguably already thrown away the victory by getting one line away from a solution on the third integral, before discarding all of her work and restarting with a new idea.  And now on the tie breaking integral, Sally again threw the victory, she correctly and at lightning speed solved the integral with an ingenious substitution, only to forget to replace the substitution back again in her answer.  After the judges again had to deliberate on whether or not to allow, which we again decided not to, and we moved to a second tie breaker.   On this final integral Barney saw, almost immediately the 0=1-1 trick, and with it, claimed the prize of OSH Integration Bee Champion 2025.

The Integration Bee will of course return next year.   There are already many intriguing plot lines to follow:

• Will Hayden claim the crown that many were cheering for him to get?
• Will Aimee become our first female champion, and be able to follow in Barney's footsteps?
• Will we be blessed with an epic match up of the Olivers?  Who will hold them back if it becomes violent??

Or will a brand new Integrator emerge, maybe from the incoming new Year 12 batch, or, just maybe, from Year 10: she who must not be named, she who terrifies all mathematicians in the Sixth Form.  Will Claudea become a genuine threat in this competition?