TALENTED Godalming College student Max Smith beat off stiff competition to make it through to the finals of the UK Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge.

A former Woolmer Hill pupil who lives in Grayswood, Max is studying computer science, physics, maths and further maths A-Levels at Godalming.

Reaching the final of the elite age group is an impressive achievement as a grand total of 6,415 students entered the first round in the 16 to 18 age group.

Max was one of the top 60 highest achieving students invited to the final round in his age group, and was presented with his finalist’s certificate at a prize-giving ceremony at Hertford College, Oxford.

The UK Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge, supported by Google, is designed to get students excited about computing and computational thinking.

It is a problem-solving contest with questions inspired by topics in computer science. In the first round, held in their own schools, students have to try and solve as many problems as possible in the allotted time.

There are six age categories and the highest scoring students from the four oldest age groups – elite, senior, intermediate and junior – were then invited to the department of computer science at Oxford for the finals over two weekends this month.

The top ten per cent of students in each age group were also invited to enter the TCS Oxford Computing Challenge next month, which aims to help talented computational thinkers develop their skills.