On June 8, 2020, the Slovak participants of the International Online Olympiad in mental arithmetic “Akira Battle” were awarded with honorary registered cups and certificates.
The Olympics, which took place from May 25 to 28, was attended by 570 children from 15 countries. Participants competed in different age categories from 7 to 14 years and represented Russia, Slovakia, Kazakhstan, Canada, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Germany and other countries.
The Slovak team was prepared by the Russian Center of the European Foundation of Slavic Literature and Culture in Bratislava under the guidance of a professional teacher Andrey Skorobogach. The team included 4 people aged 7 to 10 years.
At the first academic stage of the Olympics, participants found solutions to examples using soroban (special abacus). At the second mental stage, children performed various arithmetic operations with multi-valued numbers in their minds. At each stage, it was necessary to solve more than 80 tasks with several arithmetic operations.
According to the results of the first round, final groups were formed depending on the counting speed and the number of correct answers. Three Slovak participants were enrolled in the Champions group, and one participant Valeria Bondary was enrolled in the Super Champions group. Despite the excitement, after all, participation in such Olympics was the first time, in the final round the Slovak participants showed decent results.
The awarding ceremony was held in full-time format at the Russian Center. Children and their parents were pleased with the results. Mental arithmetic made them friends and contributed to the intellectual development of children.