Simpsonian

Issue date: 2/21/08 Section: Lifestyles

Senior Patrick Carlson and senior Steve Pilling collaborate over a problem. Last Friday, students participated in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling. Justin Wells/Staff Photographer

Last Friday, when college students all over the country were preparing plans for a fun and relaxing weekend, 33 Simpson students had other plans. These students were participating in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling and the Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling. Their schedule for the weekend was probably not what most college students would call "fun and relaxing."

The MCM and ICM are hosted each year by the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications, a non-profit organization that strives to improve mathematical education for students for all ages. The contests are open internationally to high school students and college undergraduates. This year, about 1,800 teams participated.

In the MCM and ICM, students form teams of three and are given a choice between two or three open-ended problems. Problems from previous years have ranged from sudoku puzzles to hypothetical situations involving kidney transplants and movie stunts.

"I like how they are everyday problems," sophomore Bobbi Pogge said, "Ours is about health care systems in the U.S., and it is just cool because we are dealing with real-life problems that affect us."

A team's chosen problem becomes its main focus all weekend and competitors spend practically all waking hours working on a solution. Once students find a conclusion, their team must write a paper detailing their proposed solution, problems that their team encountered, and what they might have accomplished with more time. These papers are sometimes 30-40 pages long.

Competitors are not given long to complete these papers. This year, problems were posted on COMAP's Web site at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 14, and final papers had to be submitted electronically by 7 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 18. At Simpson, this meant that students didn't do much else all weekend.

Each team was assigned a classroom in Carver Science Center as a home base during the competition. For researching their problems, teams were each given two laptops and were allowed unlimited access to inanimate resources like books, newspapers, and Web sites but were not allowed to consult any other person for assistance.

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