Students Devote Weekend To Math Problem

Instead of partying or hanging out with friends, six EMU students spent last weekend working on a math problem. The problem was for the annual Mathematical Contest in Modeling, which features contestants from 800 universities around the country.

The contest began at 8 pm Thursday night and ran through Monday night. EMU entered two teams, one consisting of Ben Ruth, Rachel Simms, and Yohannes Worku. The other team was made up of Nate Benner, Lars Akerson, and Sarah Schoenhals. Each EMU team had a designated room in the Science Center where they spent most of their Upon entering the competition teams must decide whether to solve problem A or B. Although teams do not know what the problem is until they choose it, there is a general pattern among the problems over the years. Generally problem A requires some sort of calculus, while problem B is a discrete problem which requires computer programs and algorithms. Both EMU teams picked problem A, hoping for a calculus problem. However, the problem involved picking an effective and fair districting system for the state of New York, something which would generally be similar to a B type problem.

Most of the students who entered the competition were part of the Applied Math class. They were presented with the option of entering the competition in lieu of taking a final exam. One of the participants, Rachel Simms, is not taking Applied Math, but rather competed for the experience. "I knew there was a need for participants, since each team needs three people," said Rachel, "I participated in the competition two years ago and really enjoyed the opportunity to focus on one thing for a long time." Senior Math student Yohannes commented, "This is my second year doing the competition. I like the challenging weekend and the chance to apply things I learn in class to real life situations."

The actual task of solving the problem presents many challenges for the teams. The problems do not have simple solutions, in fact, there are many possible solutions to each problem. The key to scoring well is the lengthy write up which describes the team's reasoning and methods for solving the problem, in addition to the actual solution. One of the greatest obstacles lies in devising an approach for solving the problem. This can take a team several hours, even days. Another obstacle is the necessity of teamwork among the various team members for extended periods of time. "We basically pick a time in the morning to come in, and work through the whole day until we leave to go to sleep at night," commented Sophomore Ben Ruth.

Like the baseball or tennis team, the mathletes of EMU train hard and work together to overcome the many obstacles their "sport" presents, all in hope of achieving recognition for their participation from the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP).