Miksike MentalMath is a project for students to improve their mental calculation skill. The project consists of online JavaScript-based mental training and competing platform and competitions which are held on national and international levels. Project have been developing by Kalev Põldsaar, of Estonia.
Contents
Participation
The project is held in five countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and Slovenia. Students from each of these countries must register to website pointing their schools to be able to take a part in competitions. There are different age groups to participate: primary 1–3 grade(form), basic 4–6, boys 7–12, girls 7–12, men 13 and over, women 13 and over.
Tasks
Training field consists of various tasks: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, mixed tasks, gap-filling, comparison. And almost each task has three clones: natural numbers, integers, ratios (since 2010). And there are some more complex tasks which contains some early described tasks: triathlons and pentathlon. The pentathlon consists of five different tasks and it is given 45 minutes to calculate them. Pentathlon is used at international championships. At every task (addition, subtraction and so on) it is given 40 seconds for every six levels at normal mode. And at sprint mode it is given 190 seconds where student just need to answer five examples in a row correctly to level up. Bigger levels are more difficult to solve, but they give many more points.
International competitions
International competition of Miksike MentalMath is held every year at the end of spring. Each year there compete more than one hundred best student calculators. At 2009 International championship was held in Estonia, in 2010 - Latvia, in 2011 - Slovenia.