UPDATE: This past weekend, the Pine View MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge team travelled to New York City, N.Y. to compete as finalists in the nation-wide competition. The team ranked third nationally overall and second place nationally for the development of technology. In total, the students received $12,000 in scholarships.
In an email to staff and faculty, high-school teacher and team sponsor Mark Mattia congratulated his team, “I wanted everyone to know that the students did very well, practiced past midnight on Sunday night in the hotel room, and answered the judge’s questions more than well. We were all treated very well in NYC, as the sponsor, hosting company, and organizer went out of their way to make the students comfortable given the pressure of the experience…”
The Pine View students enjoyed meeting other students from across the country. “The other students were incredibly nice and just as happy to be in New York as we were. We actually got a chance to talk to both the teams that got first and second. We chatted about things from what colleges we would be attending to the stress of the competition. It was really great knowing that they were all normal people, too,” twelfth-grade team member Sarah Mihm said.
Twelfth-grader Dylan Hull also talked about his time interacting with the students from other schools. “I honestly really enjoyed talking to the other teams… it was cool to see like what other people would actually subject themselves to 14 hours of [mathematical] modelling and I even met somebody going to the same college as me,” he said.
Other team members commented on the range of emotional that went into competing at such a high level. “To be completely honest, I had no idea we would make it to the top 6, and I felt really honored to be there. I was kind of nervous before the presentation, but knowing I had the support of the rest of my team, family, friends, and teachers helped me relax. I felt so relieved after the presentation, and felt extremely proud of my team,” twelfth-grader Chloe Harris said.
Mattia’s email finished with words of praise for both the Pine View teams that competed this year, and a look forward to next year: “I am proud of both teams that competed… We will get started again in October for next year with some new ideas on best practices… Thanks for all the support and best wishes that we received and for expediting the trip through the process.”
April 3rd:
by: Zach Bright
This year’s MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge (M3C) winners were announced Wednesday, March 28, with one of Pine View’s teams making it to the finals. Of the two Pine View teams which participated, the Log Ness Monsters ranked among the top six teams in the nation from a pool of 4000 candidates.
The members of the Log Ness Monsters are as follows:
Sarah Mihm (12)
Dylan Hull (12)
Chloe Harris (12)
Tristan Lee (12)
Zoe McDonald (11)
The annual competition, formerly known as Moody’s Mega Math Challenge, invites a team of three to five eleventh- and twelfth-grade students to work for 14 consecutive hours to solve a real-world related math problem through the creation of a 20-page paper. This year’s question centered on the topic of food insecure households across the United States and how to mitigate the problems they experience by re-purposing food waste.
Leading up to the event, the teams prepared through two five-hour mock sessions in which the teams worked to complete challenges from previous years. As coach of the two teams, statistics teacher Mark Mattia organized the mock events to help the team prepare themselves for the competition in March.
The Log Ness Monster’s prize-winning plan suggested the creation of food waste donation centers where individuals could donate left-over food so those in need could receive food they needed. Through refrigerated semi-truck shipping containers, these centers could easily serve many individuals with the resources they needed. To develop their paper and plan, modeling was developed by Lee who used a Monte Carlo code to solve the problems at hand. “It was a relatively simple code that really helped us in the end, especially with the second segment of the challenge,” he said.
On the team’s success, Mihm said, “I know we did well, but I was still definitely surprised when we found out how high we ranked.”
For their success, the Log Ness Monsters have been invited to New York City, N.Y., April 30. The students will go to trading firm called Jane Street, where judges will determine the exact ranking of the top six teams and the official winner of the competition.
The team won a total of $5000 in prize money which was split among the five team members equally. Finalists are eligible to win any of the 37 scholarship prizes available at the competition, coming to a total of $100,000. The winning team will receive $20,000.