AAMC t-shirts

Speaking of t-shirts, Albany Area Math Circle will be putting in a new order for team t-shirts soon. These shirts are especially good to wear to travel competitions like HMMT and PUMaC, because they enable you and your team-mates to find one another easily in big crowds. And they also look spiffy in team photos celebrating various accomplishments.

For example, here are photos of math circle students celebrating the 3rd place team ranking in the A division in the statewide NYSML finals n New York City in 2007.


It's also a great idea for math circle members to wear their team t-shirts when they are working with younger students, as MATHCOUNTS student coaches or middle school math circle mentors.

HMMT t-shirt design contest

Every year, the organizers of HMMT design t-shirts worn by the scores of Harvard and MIT student volunteers who run the contest. (These t-shirts are also sold, in a different color, to any attendees who wish to purchase them.) The picture above shows the 2008 t-shirt, which had a puzzle on the back.

In 2007, the back of the t-shirt had a mathematical version of the periodic table of the elements. A memorable HMMT t-shirt from 2002 used a famous quotation from Seneca: "Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit ," which translates roughly as "There has been no great mind without a mixture of madness."

I think my favorite HMMT t-shirt of all was the 2003 shirt, which was an athletic style t-shirt that listed the player's name across the back as "Archimedes," and the player's number was given as π.

If you are feeling creative, the organizers of HMMT 2009 (who include AAMC alumna Beth Schaffer!) invite you to submit a design for this year's t-shirt. The winner will receive free t-shirts for his/her entire team of 8 students (not to mention fame, if not fortune!) More information about how to create submit your entry is pasted below:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament <hmmt-request@mit.edu>
Date: Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 4:15 AM
Subject: [HMMT] HMMT T-Shirt Contest

Greetings,

We are pleased to announce the first annual HMMT T-Shirt Contest. HMMT creates t-shirts each year, and this year we'd like to ask *you* to submit designs. Designs must use at most two colors on each side and must be compatible with two different background colors (one for students, and one for staff). The winning design will be chosen by a panel of the contest directors, and the winner will receive free t-shirts for his/her entire team of 8.

To submit your designs, please email them to us at hmmt-request@mit.edu by January 15. Please submit your design in svg,jpg, eps, png, pdf, or bmp format. Note that a sketch of the design is fine, as you can provide a higher quality image if your design is selected. Keep in mind also that the final design must be sent to the printer in a vector graphics format.

You can seek inspiration among the old designs at http://web.mit.edu/hmmt/Public/graphics/tshirt/. We look forward to receiving your designs!

Sincerely,
Rishi Gupta, Beth Schaffer, and Yi Sun
HMMT Tournament Directors

Congratulations to our AMC8 contestants

Twenty-seven students from area middle schools and a local homeschool MATHCOUNTS team took part in the Albany Area Math Circle's administration of the AMC8 Contest on November 18. The official results are now in.

Our top three students, who constitute the official Albany Area Math Circle team are: Preston Law from Home Educators Enrichment Group (heeg), with a score of 23, and Zubin Mukerjee of Farnsworth Middle School and Aniket Tolpadi of Iroquois Middle School, who both scored 22. All three students also achieved national recognition on the Honor Roll of Distinction.

Six additional students with scores of 19 to 21 will receive national honors on the AMC Honor Roll: Greg Hickey of Shaker Junior High, Cecilia Holodak of Van Antwerp Middle School, Elizabeth Parizh of Iroquois, Martin Schreiner of Van Antwerp, Flora Mao of Iroquois, and Jien Ogawa of heeg.

Seven students will receive national recognition on the Merit Roll for high-scoring students in sixth grade or below: Martin Schreiner (Van Antwerp), Gili Rusak (Loudonville Elementary), Samir Menon (Iroquois), Isaac Smith (heeg), Kumar Muthukumar (Iroquois), Abigail Trouwborst (heeg), and Philip White (heeg.)

Albany Area Math Circle has a new website

Our new website is here. We'll still use this blog for occasional posts, but much of the FAQ-type information in this blog will eventually migrate over there, in a better organized form.

The new website has a complete master calendar of meetings and special events through the year. There's also a special calendar just for competitions and deadlines for signing up for those competitions.

We're using a google-forms interface that's built into google-spreadsheets to make it easier for our wonderful volunteer parents to deal with managing the lists of members who sign up for competitions. I was very pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to set up the forms interface. It has a lot of potential to simplify and streamline the process.

We'll be adding more features in the future. If you are an AAMC member who wants to sign up for the Harvard-MIT Math Tournament, please visit the new site, read the info about HMMT, discuss with your parents, and use the form to sign up ASAP.

Thanksgiving thoughts

In the spirit of the season, I'd like to say thanks to so many who make Albany Area Math Circle possible.

Thanks to all the wonderful students and alumni of the Albany Area Math Circle, who have shared their eureka moments, who have inspired me with their passion and perserverence for pursuing problem solving challenges and sharing your mathematical insights with others! You have renewed my mathematical spirit and you make me feel mathematically young at heart working with you each week.

Thanks to Professor Krishnamoorthy, who has shared my belief and vision for Albany Area Math Circle since its small beginnings in 2001 and who has tirelessly contributed his talents and his energies for the past 8 years to helping that dream become a reality, to grow, and to thrive. I am thrilled and delighted that you have been honored with the MAA Sliffe Award.

Thanks particularly to the parents of the founding members of Albany Area Math Circle, who encouraged and supported our vision from those early days, especially Jenifer Besse, JC Glendinning, and Mitch Levinn. (Especially Mitch, for his three years of countless pizza-bearing trips across vast stretches of the Siberian tundras at RPI!)

Thanks to all past and current Albany Area Math Circle parents, siblings, friends, teachers, and other community members who have nurtured and encouraged our members' love of mathematics!

Thanks especially to the countless Math Circle parents who have contributed in so many ways by driving carpools, helping with contest registration and organizational recordkeeping, proctoring and scoring other teams at travel contests, who have provided advice and support and encouragement over the years.

Thanks in particuar to some very special Math Circle parent volunteers who have followed in the footsteps of the pioneering parents:

Thanks to Mrs. Ardito, who tirelessly searches out and posts problems to work on at weekly meetings, as well as organizing the administration of the physics olympiad contests.

Thanks to both Mr and Mrs. Ardito and to Mr. and Dr. Bieber, who have managed registration details for many travel contests, driven carpools, and pitched in countless other ways as well, including chaperoning.

Thanks to Mrs. Schaffer, who managed AAMC recordkeeping and finances as registrar for two years. (And thanks to AAMC captain Beth Schaffer for all her help with that endeavor.)

Thanks to Mr. Babbitt, who wears countless "hats," has helped in countless ways at virtually every meeting for the past two years, managing so many organizational details and enabling Math Circle to grow and thrive and expand to include more outreach to younger students. I have nominated Mr. Babbitt for special recognition for his work, and I hope to have an announcement later this year.

Thanks to Professor Rita Biswas for her willingness to help manage the registration for our Harvard-MIT Math Tournament entry this year.

Thanks to the Art of Problem Solving Foundation, for setting up an earmarked account to which math circle supporters can make tax-deductible donations! Thanks again to Mr. Babbitt for managing the paperwork and processing of those donations. And thanks to all the parents and other friends of math circle who have donated to that fund.

More generally, thanks to the entire Art of Problem Solving enterprise for their excellent contributions to developing problem-solving skills around the country and the entire world. Many of Albany Area Math Circle's veterans have benefited from AoPS free discussion forums as well as their books, classes, and now their new free Alcumus project.

Thanks to all the volunteer problem writers and committee members who contribute such interesting problems to contests like AMC, AIME, ARML, HMMT, NYSML, PUMaC, and USAMO, and who contribute in countless other ways to making those programs possible.

Thanks to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, for hosting all our meetings for the first five years of Albany Area Math Circle, and for continuing to host occasional meeting when Niskayuna Schools are on vacation break. Thanks also to Siena College for hosting a few meetings as well during the 2006-2007 year. And to Siena Professor Alicia Todaro for arranging that for us.

Thanks to Niskayuna Community Education for providing an excellent large meeting space for our regular Friday meetings since fall 2006.

And thanks to Ms. Victoria Holley, director of Niskayuna Community Education, for her help in making arrangements for our meetings.

Thanks to Calvary Church in Schenectady for hosting so many AMC8 and AMC12 contests over the years. Thanks as well as Brunswick Church, the Clifton Park Library, Colonie Christian Life Center, the Emma Willard School, the First Unitarian Society of Schenectady, GE Global Research, the Kenney Community Center, the Niskayuna branch of the Schenectady Public Library, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Schenectady County Community College, Siena College, Skidmore College, Union College, the University at Albany, and Williams College, which have all hosted math circle students for one or more math competitions and/or other math special events over the years.

Thanks especially to those veteran Math Circle members and alumni who are "paying it forward" by mentoring and coaching younger students in turn, in so many different ways, by volunteering as MATHCOUNTS coaches, as middle school Math Circle mentors, or simply as welcoming and encouraging veterans helping out new rookies on Friday nights.

When I see one math circle student helping a new member or a younger student in a middle school program, you fill my heart to bursting with pride!

Happy Thanksgiving to ALL!

Mary O'Keeffe
Albany Area Math Circle advisor

P.S. Thanks to my family--my husband, my daughters, and my parents for all their love, inspiration, patience, and support for everything I do, including Albany Area Math Circle.

Paying it forward--coaching MATHCOUNTS

Many of our alumni and current veteran members have been "paying it forward" by coaching local MATHCOUNTS teams. Mentoring younger students can be rewarding and fun. Moreover, explaining math to others deepens your own understanding and mastery of the concepts you are explaining.

Pictured at left is Felix Sun, an Albany Area Math Circle veteran and a former National MATHCOUNTS finalist, during a break from practicing with the 2007 New York State team. Felix is now working with fellow Math Circle veteran Eric Wang to coach MATHCOUNTS students in Shenandahoah school district.

Dave Bieber, another Math Circle veteran and former National MATHCOUNTS finalist, is coaching at Van Antwerp Middle School. Last year, Van Antwerp students benefited from coaching by Math Circle veteran Qianyi ("Landy") Zhang assisted by Jason Xu. The year before, Van Antwerp students got coaching from Math Circle veterans Eugenia Gisin and Anjana Tayi.

Raju Krishnamoorthy, a founding member of Albany Area Math Circle as well as a National MATHCOUNTS finalist, helped his former coach, Mrs. Nancy Smith. coach teams at Doyle Middle School in Troy.

Math Circle member Anagha Tolpadi is coaching MATHCOUNTS again at Iroquois Middle School this year. Other Math Circle members and alumni who've coached at Iroquois include Markus Salasoo and Alison Miller.

The heegMATHCOUNTS group has had the benefit of many Albany Area Math Circle student coaches over the years. Current student coaches include Matthew Babbitt, Schuyler Smith, Leah and Luke Trouwborst, Jay and Lindsay White, and Zagreb Mukerjee. Past AAMC student coaches have included Drew Besse, James Dick, Stephen Krewson, Catherine Miller, and Beth Schaffer. (Beth also coached Farnsworth Middle School's team in earlier years.)

Paying it forward--middle school math circles

Our veteran high school math circle members have benefited from the mentorship, support, advice, and coaching of math circle alumni when they were younger. Now, in turn, many of our current members are "paying it forward" in the finest tradition by working with younger students in a variety of ways. A number of our math circle members are serving as student coaches of local MATHCOUNTS teams. Dave Bieber and Markus Salasoo designed and ran a summer math camp for local middle school students. And other members are working on a new math circle initiative: running "middle school math circles."


Math circle veterans Zagreb Mukerjee and Matthew Babbitt have been working with Mr. Babbitt to start up a "middle school math circle" which meets weekly in Clifton Park. Math circle veterans Andrew Ardito, Liz Simon, and Jason Xu are planning to start up a second middle school math circle which will begin meeting in another location later this year.