Cowbellpedia: Celebration of Mathematics Champions

 Cowbellpedia: Celebration of Math Champions. 

Cowbellpedia, the numero uno educational tv show targeted at secondary school youngsters to bring together mathematical talents all over Nigeria. Secondary schools all over the country amounting to tens of thousands register for this elite math competition and sit for written tests that decide who gets to the live shows. 

Only 108 students in total end up at the live shows that consist of preliminary rounds, semifinal rounds and the final round. 

Highly competitive, eye-catching and interesting, the show is a progressive one.Mathematics is perhaps a puzzle and seeing students who demystify this puzzle is wondrous. 

In the live shows, 108 students take part in the preliminary rounds where they take turns answering the questions thrown at them within a 5-second bracket, understanding, speed and precision is key. 

Only 18 students get to the semifinal rounds and the best six ends up in the finals. 

In the live shows, students stand behind an electronic lectern - six of them at a time - with their names projected in front of the lectern. They have a sheet of paper and a pen for working out the questions thrown at them, the deal is to answer all questions accurately and swiftly while the audience consisting of their fellow students, teachers and parents cheer them on. Ability to perform under pressure is a necessity in this game and amazingly students often do this quite effortlessly. 

In the teachers' edition, teachers play under the same conditions with the same rules - answer all questions correctly in the shortest possible time - most teachers having gone through this experience often have new profound respect for their students. 

The cool, calm and collected presenter Oscar Oyinsan does a very good job of keeping the contestants calm and relaxed, the quiz master as he is fondly called dictates the questions as it seems on his screen and the students faced opposite to him solve the questions - either on the paper or in their heads - and punch in the answers on their screens before the 5-second window elapses. 

In the show, there are two rounds - the general round and the '60 seconds of fame' round. In the general round, all six standing contestants are subject to 12 questions, the goal is to get all the questions correctly to go ahead to round 2, only three out of the six get to progress to round 2 and only two out of the three progress out of round 2 to the next stage. 

In case of a tie, the contestants are subject to a next round with three questions apiece, scores in this round are independent of the general round score, in situations where the contestants get all three next questions right as it often happens, speed becomes the judge ; a contestant that answers at an average rate of 0.91 seconds will progress to the next round ahead of his colleague with a 1.10 average rate. 

In round 2 which is the pumped-up part of the show - the 60 seconds of fame - all victorious three contestants are expected to accurately answer as many questions as they can in 60 seconds, the best two with the highest scores progress.

A worthy point of note, two contestants set new records in this round, they accurately answered 19 questions in the cowbellpedia 60 seconds of fame, Miss Faith Odunsi of the Ambassadors schools, Ota who emerged champion in the Historic Global Open mathematics competition and Mr Mgbemena Chinedu of Graceland International, Port Harcourt who went on to emerge as the winner in the 2018 senior category. 

When the Who Want To Be A Millionaire show stopped viewing, I wondered if another show was going to spring up and catch the interest of fans sympathetic to intellectual shows as WWTBAM, as it appears Cowbellpedia has emerged to bridge that gap. Only five seasons have aired so far and it is expected that more seasons will be aired in the coming months. 

Many find the reality tv show Bbnaija too lax and the TheVoice Nigeria dim, in contrast cowbellpedia is not controversial and more relatable ; mathematics is a course we've all come across at some point even if we hated or loved it. 

Cowbellpedia prizes include a ₦ 2,000,000 cash prize for the 1st place, ₦ 1,500,000 for the first runner-up and ₦ 1,000,000 for the second runner-up, plaques and a sponsored all-expense educational excursion trip. 

Cowbellpedia is proudly sponsored by Promasidor, makers of Cowbell. It's a cool show, worthy, energetic, interesting and it celebrates the young bright minds; the future of our country.