Dellwood Middle School held the finals of this year?s Math Attack competition on Tuesday. The event took place on stage at Dellwood?s final assembly of the year.

The six students competing in the Math Attack finals were Keivi Rankin, 13, Aaron Famous, 13, Dominique Mayho, 12, Nicholas Septimus, 12, Sakuar Looby, 12, and Lechun Smith, 12.

Math Attack is a math mentor programme which involves teaching mathematical skills and techniques via practising how to solve math problems mentally.

It is a programme run and developed by Bermuda?s Epsilon Theta Lambda chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Math Attack was developed out of the fraternity?s Alpha Academy programme, which concentrates on mentoring Middle School Boys and encourages boys to learn and aspire to great things in the future.

The Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc, recognises the need to help correct the educational, economic, political, and social injustices faced by Black Americans.

At the competition, fraternity president Dwayne Caines said the students had come a long way since September and had done very well to be the final six.

Throughout the school year, every Thursday the students involved in the programme stayed behind after school to do problems and are mentored by members of the fraternity.

Before he was asked, Mr. Caines volunteered to answer the question ? ?Why just boys??

?Our young men need us,? he said. ?They need other young men.?

Mr. Caines that Math Attack was an opportunity for friendships to be formed between the mentors and the students. ?Our boys need a special hand,? he added.

Watching the event it was clear the six boys were all very hard working, intelligent and talented. Their hands shot up fast to answer the very difficult mathematical problems, which were often five- or six-part and included difficult multiplication.

What would take most of us a few minutes to work out ? perhaps with paper or a calculator ? these boys answered from their heads in a matter of seconds.

They were all strong mathematicians and it was often difficult for judges to see who?s hand went up first.

To add to the difficulty, the boys were often required to answer in Japanese so if audience members weren?t bewildered by the questions they certainly were astounded when students answered in a foreign language.

The winner of the quiz was Lechun Smith, and he received an X-Box 360 for his achievement. The runner up was Dominque Mayho receiving an i-Pod nano and the second runner up was Aaron Famous, who received a remote control car.

The three boys were also presented with Math Attack trophies. Keivi Rankin, Nicholas Septimus and Shakuar Looby all received $50 dollar gift certificates for making it to the final six.

Lechun?s grandmother, Paulette Smith and aunt, Claudette Jones who had travelled all the way from New Jersey to see him perform in the final said they were very proud of him and very glad they had come.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity member and facilitator of the event, Michael Wellman, said that the programme had been developed by Brother Mason West III. Mr. Wellman said students are taught to count in different languages as a part of the programme.

This year it was Japanese while last year both French and German were learned.

The language component of the programme is meant to illustrate that if you learn to solve problems in another language, English solutions seem much easier.

?We are taking global perspective on this,? Mr. Wellman said. ?We?re looking at where Bermuda is going in terms of international business.?

Field such as actuarial science and risk management require individuals with high levels of mathematical skill.

?We want to prepare these guys for the future and make sure their maths skills are leading,? he said, mentioning that by high school they hope to see students with a high level of proficiency in calculus, quantum theory and string theory.

?I?m very proud of them,? he said.

?These guys are phenomenal. It shows that, when they are challenged, they will rise to the occasion ? and that is exactly what they have done.?

The mentors also do some fun activities with the boys and Mr. Wellman reported that they had all gone mini golfing last weekend.