Mr Woo visited Orange High School on Monday and Tuesday, teaching 400 primary students on the first day and year 12 students from OHS and Canobolas Rural Technology High School on the second.

Setting a number of challenges for the students, Mr Woo said he wanted students to use their theoretical knowledge to solve questions “that actually matter”.

“For example, you can work out how much it will cost to fit 150 solar panels and what angle they need to be and which roofs,” he said.

Mr Woo said human minds trumped computers because they could formulate the questions and think laterally.

He was encouraged to see students initially struggling to solve the tasks, saying they helped them grow.

“I once asked a mathematician, ‘do you get the answer right all the time?’ And she said, ‘no we’re constantly getting things wrong, but that doesn’t mean we give up’,” he said.

OHS year 12 student Jack Kelly, who one day hopes to study physiotherapy, said he gained a better sense of how maths applied to real life. 

“He explained reasoning and understanding the problem rather than just being able to solve it,” he said.

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