Students at Rotorua Intermediate School have every reason to believe maths can be fun - and every reason to retain their mathletics title.
The Human Calculator Scott Flansburg visited them yesterday to amaze them with how quickly sums could be solved.
Mr Flansburg is an American best-selling author who holds world records
for solving complex equations faster than they can be tapped into a calculator.
He was himself wowed by the school's powhiri before showing his problem-solving skills.
"I like meeting all the Kiwi kids - they've got fantastic personalities," he said.
"As Human Calculator I get to travel the world and meet students. Without a doubt this is the most amazing welcome I've ever had in the world. It's very humbling and I've no doubt why you won the New Zealand maths challenge last year."
The school came top of New Zealand at last year's competition.
Mr Flansburg drew gasps from the 700 students as he showed them why he is known as the Human Calculator.
He asked students to give him numbers which he would add, multiply or divide with the aim of beating a member of the mathletics team on a calculator.
He added 23, 64, 72, 23, 82 and 57 to equal 321 as a warm-up.
Then a student picked the number 72, which Mr Flansburg added to itself over and over in a race with the calculator. He holds the world record for this, resulting in 37 answers in 15 seconds.
"I discovered I could do this the same age you are now," he told the students to more gasps.
Mr Flansburg is touring 16 New Zealand schools this week.
His aim is to get students so excited about mathematics that they sign up to a competition on his mathletics.com website, which enables children to compete against students from around the world. The site is running a competition for New Zealand schools between August 24 and 31.
