On 11 April 2026, the finals of SPIB 2026 took place, as our top 16 Round 1 teams battled it out to claim the (hypothetical, √(-1), nonexistent) trophy at the battlegrounds of S17, NUS Department of Mathematics, where our first-ever Grand Integrators of SPIB were crowned.
This year we had exclusive goodies for our top 16: SPIB tote bags, SPIB pens, bee keychains, and customised hoodies with their team names on them (FYI, we let them make their own team names).
If you’re unfamiliar with SPIB Round 2’s format, check out our explainer page!
(Note: link is dead…check our other blog post instead 🙂 Also SPIB 2026’s playoffs was single-elimination, which has since been changed from 2027 onwards.)
In the morning, teams fought valiantly in the group stage, working overtime to solve tough integrals with even stricter time limits. Only the strongest two teams of each group survived the group stage, as 16 teams were cut down to eight.
After five rounds of intense head-to-heads between the teams, the eight teams heading to the playoffs were determined.
For their efforts, all our teams were treated to a buffet lunch courtesy of Jane Street’s funding. I think we can probably justify getting more food next year, after seeing how fast the buffet trays were emptied.
No rest for the wicked, however, for our playoffs-bound teams. Quarterfinals began after lunch, featuring even harder integrals than before in best-of-five matches. The eight teams were cut down to the final four, with the final matches held in the same seminar room with everyone watching.
The first semifinal saw The Disintegrated Bees go up against INEtgRaTioners, where the former secured a comfortable 2-1 win to secure a grand final berth.
Semifinal #2 was a tight battle between pack it up. and bars of crow. pack it up. managed to recover from an initial 0-2 deficit against bars of crow to tie up the match 2-2 at the end of the fifth integral. Unfortunately for them, bars of crow locked in to secure the tiebreaker win and claim the last grand final spot.
The silver lining for pack it up., however, was that they were able to carry their momentum into the 3rd Place match between them and INEtgRaTioners, securing a confident 4-0 victory to finish on the podium.
(Note: getting 3 points already guarantees the win, but all questions of every match were done for the love of the game)
All eyes were on The Disintegrated Bees after a very close call in problem #1 of the grand final, only forgetting to include a negative (-) sign in their answer, and solving the second integral. Just as all eyes were on them to solve the next problem, bars of crow stunned everyone by writing down the answer to the third integral in a record 30 seconds of the problem being shown (reminder that grand final has a 10 min/integral time limit btw), tying the grand final 1-1, much to the shock of our chief problem setter Jing Quan.
However, bars of crow were unable to keep up after that. For the remaining two integrals, while bars of crow struggled to make progress, The Disintegrated Bees were edging us by writing the correct answer on the whiteboard and taking 3 minutes to circle it, eventually solving both correctly and winning the grand final 3-1.
The list of all the integrals and worked solutions can be found in our archive. Highlights of the semis, decider, and grand final will also be uploaded to our YouTube channel. These were the playoffs results:
After the whole tournament, prizes were given out, with the help of Mr Leong, Vice-principal of Nanyang Junior College, to the top 3 teams.
Congratulations to The Disintegrated Bees (V T Naveen Mugundh (NUSH), Teo Ming Yang (NUSH), Ying Liqian (NUSH)) for winning the whole event, and in convincing fashion as well! The Bees, as their name would suggest, disintegrated the entire competition: they breezed through the group stage 2-0 to punch their tickets to playoffs, where they proceeded to win the entire tournament without dropping a single match.
The runner-ups, bars of crow (Giovan Heraldo Yang (ACSI), Tang Yanxiang (ACSI), Tang Yiren (ACSI)) undoubtedly deserve their praise. They topped their group and made a nearly flawless run, losing only to the eventual tournament winners, delivering close matches and an unforgettable, record-time, absolute cinema solve in the grand final.
Of course, our 3rd Place team, pack it up. (Zachary Chia Min (HCI), Poh Hong Wee, Louis (Fu Hongwei) (HCI), Wang Ryan Li (HCI)), deserve their flowers as well. They fought tooth and nail and put on a display of resilience in the semifinal, and ended their run with a statement victory in the decider match to secure a top 3 finish.
The final standings for Round 2 are:
Results for Round 1 have also been updated on our website!
With that, SPIB 2026 has come to an end. For our first ever iteration of SPIB, I think I speak for everyone when I say that SPIB ’26 was more successful than we could’ve imagined. Thank you to our director and vice-director, Gerard and Jing Lun, as well as the entire organising committee, for making this whole event possible, our problem setters and jury who worked tirelessly to prepare the integrals, our sponsors Jane Street and Texas Instruments, for providing financial support and prizes respectively, NYJC and DHS for supporting SPIB, and of course, to you, our amazing participants, for your overwhelming support and participation (like seriously we only expected maybe 70 people initially, 400 signups is crazy). We hope to see you again next year! ❤️
– Kingston, Organising Committee
SPIB 