Saturday, February 26, 2011

Anagha and the Persistent Chickens



Sounds like the name of a rock group, right?

But it's not...the picture above shows Anagha Tolpadi last year working with a group of four wonderful sixth and seventh graders who decided to call themselves "The Persistent Chickens." Persistence and perseverence is the key--and encouragement by mentors like Anagha helps!

All four of the "Persistent Chickens" did very well on the fall middle school math contests and received invitations to join our high school math circle in taking the challenging AMC10 high school contest with us on Wednesday. Congratulations to all of you!

Anagha is now off studying math at Cornell. To the persistent chickens: keep on keeping on....encourage each other and younger students in the way that Anagha encouraged you. The more you help others, the more you will learn yourself.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Congratulations to our AIME Qualifiers

Albany Area Math Circle is pleased to congratulate the following students who qualified for the American Invitational Math Exam based on AMC12A or AMC10A taken with Albany Area Math Circle on February 8:

AMC12A AIME Qualifiers

SCHUYLER M SMITH 124.5
FELIX SUN 123.0
MATTHEW W BABBITT 120.0
JAY T WHITE 114.0
RYAN CHEU 99.0
ELIZABETH PARIZH 99.0
WYATT C SMITH 99.0
ANIKET TOLPADI 97.5
PRESTON T LAW 94.5
ASHLEY CHO
WANWAN FEI
PAUL RAPAPORT
MATT WALSH
JASON XU


AMC10A AIME Qualifiers

Zubin Mukerjee 144
Alex Wei 127.5
William Wang 123.0
Ziqing (Bill) Dong 121.5
Philip Sun, 120


AMC10A Young Student Honors
(for students in 8th grade or below who scored above 90 on AMC10A):

Alex Wei, grade 7 Van Antwerp, 127.5
William Wang, grade 7 Farnsworth, 123
Ziqing (Bill) Dong, grade 7 Farnsworth, 121.5
Philip Sun, grade 8, Acadia, 120
Isaac Smith, grade 8 heeg, 115.5
Gili Rusak, grade 8 Shaker, 111
Nathan Soedjak, grade 7 heeg/Colorado Math Circle, 97.5
Ryan Soedjak, grade 7 heeg/Colorado Math Circle, 97.5
Gideon Schmidt, grade 7 Iroquois, 93
Philip White, grade 7 heeg, 93
Zachary Benson, grade 8 Hebrew Academy of the Capital District, 91.5

AMC12A Young Student Honors
(for students in 10th grade or below who scored above 90 on AMC12A)

Matthew Babbitt, grade 10 heeg 120
Elizabeth Parizh, grade 10 Niskayuna HS 99
Aniket Tolpadi, grade 9 Niskayuna HS 97.5
Preston Law, grade 10 heeg 94.5

We will update this list as we get reports from students who took the A-date at other AMC A-date contest locations in the Capital District. AMC B-date qualifers will also be added when we get those reports.

Albany Academy update:
Congratulations to AIME qualifier Paul Rapoport on the 12A.

Emma Willard School update:
Congratulations to AIME Qualifiers Soyeun (Ashley) Cho and Wanwan Fei on the 12A.

Colorado Math Circle update:
Congratulations to Nathan and Ryan Soedjak, who both received Young Student Honors for scores of 97.5 on the AMC10A. Nathan and Ryan were active in our math circle before their family moved to Colorado, where they now attend the Colorado Math Circle. The photo below shows Nathan, Troy Wang, and Ryan working together at an Albany Area Math Circle middle school meeting last year.



Niskayuna update: Congratulation to AIME qualifier Alex Wei from Van Antwerp MS and to Gideon Schmidt from Iroquois MS for young student honors on AMC10A. Congratulations also to AIME qualifiers Elizabeth Parizh, Aniket Tolpadi, and Jason Xu on the 12A.

Guilderland HS update: Congratulations to AIME qualifier Zubin Mukerjee, a tenth grader at Guilderland High School, who scored 144 on the AMC10A. Congratulations also to Matt Walsh, who qualified for AIME on AMC12A.

Bethlehem HS update: Congratulations to AIME qualifier Ryan Cheu on the 12A.

Shenendahowa update: Congratulations to AIME qualifier Felix Sun on the 12A and Philip Sun on the 10A.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Harvard MIT Math Tournament congratulations!

Full HMMT public results are now available here. There were 100 teams and over 700 individuals participating, including many of the strongest math teams from all over the country, as well as teams from Beijing, Shanghai, Korea, and Nairobi.

Congratulations to our A-team (Albany Area Math Circle Steinmetz) for finishing 13th place on the A-division team round, amidst some very distinguished competition. Congratulations as well to AAMC B2 for placing 19th on the B-division team round and AAMC B1 for placing 28th.

Congratulations as well to the following students who ranked high in individual subject tests:

Matthew Babbitt
6th place individual Combinatorics/Geometry
25th overall individual sweepstakes

Ashley Cho
37th place individual Algebra/Geometry

Gurtej Kanwar
13th place individual Algebra/Calculus

Felix Sun
8th place individual Calculus/Combinatorics

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

More Chapter Congratulations!



Congratulations as well to Thomas Glozman of Maple Avenue Middle School, a member of our middle school math circle who won first place in the TriCounty MATHCOUNTS Chapter! Thomas is at right in the photo above working with Gideon Schmidt from Iroquois Middle School at one of last year's middle school math circle meetings. We are all about the building of bridges...solving problems together since 2001!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Chapter MATHCOUNTS Congratulations!

Congratulations to all the awesome high school student coaches who have helped to coach the middle school students who did such an outstanding job at today's chapter.

The top seven teams all included students who have participated in our middle school math programs and/or have been coached by Albany Area Math Circle student coaches and/or advisors. Out of the top 20 individuals, 17 students have also participated in our middle school math circle programs and/or had AAMC student coaches.

First place team: Farnsworth Middle School



Three of the four students on Farnsworth's team have participated in our middle school math programs, as have several of their individual members. Student coach Zubin Mukerjee has done a particularly awesome job of working with William Wang and Bill Dong in his satellite middle school math circle. Bill Dong was 5th place individual; William Wang ranked 3rd on individual writtens, and won the Countdown Round. Alicia Chen, a member of the "persistent chickens" team from our middle school math circle made the Countdown Round also, ranking 11th.

Second place team: Shaker Junior High School



Gili Rusak, who ranked 2nd on writtens and made the semifinals in Countdown, led the Shaker team to a 2nd place team finish. Gili is already a member of our high school math circle, due to qualifying for AIME last year. She also participated in Zubin Mukerjee's satellite math circle before joining our high school group. Prior to that, she was a member of satellite math circle mentored by Matthew Babbitt and Zubin's older brother Zagreb. Her teammate Alex Cao, who ranked in the top 20, has been an active member in our middle school math circle meets for the past two years.

Third place team: Van Antwerp Middle School



Student coach Jason Xu and his assistant Suman Padhi coached the successful VA team, which had two students participating in Countdown: Alexander Wei (4th place individual) and Andrei Akhmetov (13th place individual.) Their teammate Jason Tang also made the top 20.

Fourth place team: Home Educators Enrichment Group



Student coach Matthew Babbitt and his assistant Jien Ogawa coached this team, which did a superb job on the team round. Team captain Isaac Smith made the Countdown Round in 12th place and his teammate Philip White also made the top 20.

Fifth place team: Acadia Middle School



Student coach Felix Sun coached the Acadia team, as well as Koda Middle School. Three of the team members made the Countdown Round: Jerry Qu (8th place writtens), Joe Lou (7th place writtens), and Phillip Sun, first place writtens.

Sixth place team: Iroquois Middle School



Iroquois student coaches were Aniket Tolpadi and Elizabeth Parizh. Team member Gideon Schmidt made the Countdown Round, while his teammates Rocket Ruona and Patrick Chi also made the top 20. Gideon, Rocket, and Patrick have all been members of our middle school math circle. Patrick has also been a regular at Zubin Mukerjee's satellite math circle in Guilderland.

Seventh place team: Hebrew Academy of the Capital District (HACD)



The HACD team is coached by Albany Area Math Circle advisor Alexandra Schmidt. Many of the HACD students have been participating in our math circle's fall math meets. Team member Zachary Benson qualified for the Countdown Round with a 9th place rank on individuals. For reasons of Sabbath observance, HACD students took the contest earlier in the week. HACD deserves special recognition for the awesome participation rates: their school is very small, with only 50 students in combined enrollment in all three eligible grades (6/7/8) but fully one-third of Hebrew Academy students in those grades are active and enthusiastic participants in their school MATHCOUNTS program! HACD mathletes celebrated afterwards with a party at their MATHCOUNTS coach's home. Her prodigious talents include the ability to make hot fudge and caramel sauce from scratch! (Click on the photo below for a clearer image of the mathletes' delighted expressions!)



A special shout-out to the newest team, Hackett Middle School from Albany City School District, which placed a very respectable 12th out of 21 teams, an awesome performance for a first outing for a brand new team that only started up in January.



The team's student coach was Hilly Adler, a student at Albany High School who is a former mathlete from Hebrew Academy. Hilly worked in concert with Hackett Middle School teacher coach Tamara Moffett. There were many bureaucratic obstacles to getting a team off the ground in a large urban school district. Kudos to Albany Area Math Circle advisor Alexandra Schmidt for supporting Hilly in being tenacious to make this team happen, and in providing advice about team coaching.



Shout-outs as well to Doyle Middle School coach Nancy Smith, whose team placed 10th. Nancy is a dedicated and experienced veteran coach whose students have recently begun participating in our middle school math meets. There are many challenges in coaching an inner city school team, and Nancy meets them all energetically. Several of her teams have gone to state and two of her mathletes have made it all the way to nationals. Nancy has recently started up an exciting and creative new outreach initiative to elementary schools in her district, bringing enthusiastic young mathletes to solve problems together even before they reach middle school.

Top 20 individuals



1. Phillip Sun Acadia
2. Gili Rusak Shaker
3. William Wang Farnsworth
4. Alex Wei Van Antwerp
5. Bill Dong Farnsworth
6. Noah Rudnick Shaker
7. Joe Lou Acadia
8. Jerry Qu Acadia
9. Zachary Benson Hebrew Academy of the Capital District
10. Gideon Schmidt Iroquois
11. Alicia Chen Farnsworth
12. Isaac Smith heeg
13. Andrei Akhmetov Van Antwerp
14. Jason Tang Van Antwerp
15. Jeremy Collison Farnsworth
16. Patrick Chi Iroquois
17. Rocket Ruona Iroquois
18. Billy Schmitt Schalmont
19. Phillip White heeg
20. Alex Cao Shaker

Thanks again to GE Global Research for general awesomeness in hosting our Chapter Competition and to all the volunteers who made it possible.

I'd also like to recognize the awesome math circle affiliated adult community volunteers who have helped to organize and coach teams: Bill Babbitt (heeg), Anil Tolpadi and Steve Schmidt (Iroquois), Hong Chen (Van Antwerp). Kudos as well to all the professional math teachers in the Capital District who sponsor teams at their schools. Without the support and leadership of adult sponsoring coaches, none of the 21 teams could have existed, let alone been as successful as they were!

Friday, February 4, 2011

Don't lose ALL your marbles!

Tonight our math circle worked on the 50th anniversary American High School Math Exams (AHSME) problems, which contained one problem from each of the first five decades of the AHSME. (For those who don't know, the AHSME was the predecessor of today's AMC12 contest. And it all started in New York State in 1950--yay for New York pride!)

Here is one of the problems a number of tonight's students especially enjoyed from the 1991 AHSME contest given 20 years ago, before any of the students eligible to take this year's AMC contests were born.



To clarify these instructions, let's be clear that you can use the four allowed procedures as many times as you like, in any order that you like.

It looks very daunting at first--there are so many possibilities to consider.

If you want a hint, check the comments.