11-year-old schoolgirl wins national competition to bring animal maths character to life

‘Octo’, the winning character designed by Angela Zhu, will become part of the official merchandise for RM Easimaths – the online portal teaching pupils nationwide maths

‘Octo’, the logical octopus designed by London-based schoolgirl, Angela Zhu, has been announced by leading Edtech solutions and strategies provider,RM Technology, as the winner of the nationwide RM Easimaths Character Competition. The artwork designed by 11-year-old Angela has been digitally created and will be incorporated into merchandise for RM Easimaths, the online portal teaching thousands of pupils nationwide maths.

Angela, the competition’s winner, will also receive an RM Easimaths kit for herself and her classmates, which includes posters and stickers. Running from 6th to 22nd October 2023, the competition saw over 60 creative designs from primary school children across the UK.

Designed to help students aged 4-12 improve their maths skills,RM Easimaths is the leading online program helping pupils make confident progress in mathematics. Maths exercises are conducted by five animal characters: Swing, the maths loving monkey; Snap, the cheeky crocodile; Squirt, the clever elephant; Scuba, the fun frog; and Stripe, the slick tiger. From tackling fractions to working through times tables, the five characters work with pupils to solve maths problems.

Angela Zhu, winner of the nationwide RM Easimaths Character Competition, said: “I was inspired by Octo because octopuses are very intelligent – they learn complicated information and behave in complicated ways. The fact that they even have nine “brains” is interesting too and relates to maths, because you need to be smart to do math.

Also, octopuses can navigate with great flexibility, just as RM Easimaths, which is the best learning website ever because it helps students with different learning needs and styles improve math skills in a fun way. RM Easimaths has helped me progress in maths, and I’m happy that Octo gets to be featured alongside the other characters.”

Jason Tomlinson, Managing Director at RM Technology, said: “Firstly, we’d like to thank the children across the UK who participated in the search to find RM Easimaths’ newest group member. It’s been incredibly rewarding to see the creativity of pupils!  

We’ve greatly enjoyed meeting ‘Octo’, as well as all the competition entries, and we’re sure there will be more opportunities for students to show their creativity and decide who could be a fun addition to Swing’s, Snap’s, Squirt’s, Scuba’s and Stripe’s teaching group, helping thousands of pupils make confident progress in maths.”  

Currently being used by 300 schools and 80,000 students across the UK, RM Easimaths has over 12,000 exciting programme questions suitable for primary schools. Over 132 million questions have been answered by pupils, ultimately helping teachers embed core maths skills in a safe, fun and engaging environment.