[chongli]

But most people doing math in high school or university are graded on their working of a problem, with the final result usually equating to a small proportion of the total marks received

That heavily depends on the individual grader/instructor. A good grader will take into account the amount of progress toward the solution. Restating trivial facts of the problem (in slightly different ways) or pursuing an invalid solution to a dead end should not be awarded any marks.

[slushy-chivalry]

it choked because it didn't solve for `t` at the end

impressive attempt though, it used number of wraps which I found quite clever