MathCounts 2016

Like I said in my last post, the Math Olympiad competition was my first math competition that I have ever participated in, which happened when I was in 5th grade. Well, since my team and I won, it inspired me to go deeper into this type of competitions. 

Coincidentally, I graduated to middle school and there was the opportunity to have a special class to prepare for a math competition called MathCounts, so I signed up. We met together every Tuesdays and Thursdays before school of the year starting in October for the classes. This competition is not divided by grade level, so there is a disadvantage for 6th graders. We were coached by my math teacher, who has lots of experience because she has been coaching for 5 years now. 

After about 5 months, in March, we had the School Round of the competition to decide who would be elected to the regional competition. There are 4 parts to the whole process. Starting with the Sprint Round, everyone gets 40 minutes to finish 30 problems. Then comes the Target Round, 8 problems divided into 4 pairs that each takes 6 minutes. After the Target Round, it comes the team round which everyone gets into teams with 20 minutes to solve 10 problems. Lastly, there is the Countdown Round, which is a chance for the top 10 people to get a better rank in the competition and settle ties. Everyone gets 40 seconds to try to solve the problem before the other person, and whoever gets 2 problems right wins. 

According to the final School Round results, I got 3rd out of our whole school (32 participating students, six 8th graders, nineteen 7th graders, and seven 6th graders), which was surprising since I beat almost everyone except one 8th grader and one 7th grader. But after the Countdown Round, the 4th placer beat me and I became 4th. Either way, I was in top four, meaning I was eligible for the regional competition as part of our school's team.

On February 27th, we went to the Regional Competition and through all of the competitions. The problems were not really hard, but they definitely wasn't easy. We had a break, and then the results of the first 2 rounds were announced. I got 8th in the whole regional competition (I acquired a role in the Countdown Round)!!!!!

Regional Competition

I was very happy that I made it so far, but I did not move up in the Countdown Round. The good news is, my team got 2nd place at the Regional Competition, which means we qualified for the State Competition!!!!!

The State Competition was hosted at Microsoft's Main Campus on March 12th, and the building was very cool. We went through all of the tests and again, thought they were very easy. The results were announced and we obtained 16th place as a team, and I achieved 131st in the state out of 161 participants as a individual (it isn't that bad for a sixth grader in my opinion). The competitors in the Countdown Round were all very good and very fast, and it was very interesting watching them 1v1 each other. 

Sadly, we didn't get any further than that, but still, I was very pleased with my results since I didn't have a lot of experience. This loss is important to me because it is a source of motivation to keep trying, beat my score of this year's competition, and make it to Nationals maybe!!!! :)

I hope you all found this decently interesting, please leave a like or a comment on what I should try, work on, or write about!!!!!  

Have a good day!!!!

Yours Truly,

Erik

2015 Math Olympiad

Yes, I know that this event happened more than a year ago, but this was a very special moment in my life. Here is the background piece of the story:

I participated in a competition last year, on May 7th, 2015 that changed my life. This

competition is called the Math Olympiad with more than 12 sites and about 52 schools participating throughout Washington. This event is hosted by WSMC (Washington State Math Council).

I have always had a passion for math, and I worked on math related things everyday. As preparation for this competition, my team met every Saturday of the year since the end of October. We moved around a lot to find meeting rooms that were vacant so we could use it. The meetings were all fun, we did all kinds of math problems, watched videos, read books, and many other things to help us strengthen our math abilities. After meetings, we ate snacks and chatted with each other until everyone's’ parents arrived. The Math Olympiad also had a t-shirt designing competition, and we consulted to each other briefly about our ideas.

On the day of the competition, we all felt confident about it. The competition is divided into 2 parts, Session 1 and Session 2. The Session 1 test is a long session problem that relates to the real world, meaning it’s based on an issue in society, and the Session 2 test is then split into 5 more categories, Number Sense, Measurement, Geometry, Probability/Statistics, and Algebra. We made sure that we had all of our necessary materials (calculators, pencils, erasers, etc.) and waited for the opening ceremony. After a few minutes, the site organizer came and started her opening speech.

My Design (front)

Teammate's Design (back)

After the speech, she announced the t-shirt designing winners, and my design won for the front side, and my teammate’s design won for the back side. This was very surprising because there are only 2 t-shirt design winners, and the winners were both on my team.

After the announcements, the competitions started. We went to the gymnasium while other grade leveled people went to other places for their tests. The first test that we had to take was the Session 1 problem. We were given an allowed time of 1 hour exactly, but everything was simple for us so we finished with more than 30 minutes to spare. Then, when everyone finally turned in their test papers, we went outside for a 15 minute break. When the break was over, we entered the gym again for the start of the Session 2 tests. We did the first 3 with 5 minutes in between each one, had a 10 minute break afterwards, then finished the last 2 with the same break policy. We finished each one with a lot of time to spare, averaging out to about 10 minutes each. They were all  easy, so we were all very confident about our results.

When all of the testing have finished, we went back to the commons of the school to eat lunch. We had ordered pizza, and we had a chat with our parents about our thoughts on the competition. Shortly after lunch, the host came in again and she started the awards ceremony. A feeling of nervousness fell upon us, until finally the award section of our grade. Turns out, we got 2 superior medals, one for session 1 and one for session 2. Superior medals are the best type of awards that participants can acquire. It means that these competitors scored 80% or better, and that's what happened for both sessions. We took lots of pictures and my team and their parents were all very happy. This event is particularly important to me because it showed me that we have the ability of winning and achieving great things, and what we actually need is to try hard so that we can actually use this ability.

Me (middle) and my team with our medals that we got from the competition.

This is one event that is very important to me, and I want to share it with everyone to see what I have experienced and I hope you enjoyed learning about the Math Olympiad. But, this is only 1 of the many other life changing events that I have. :)

Sincerely,

Erik Ma

Introduction to My Blog

Hello everyone!!!!

My name is Erik Ma and this blog is for sharing all of my adventures and key events that I have experienced in my life. Most of the things that I post have some sort of special meaning to me, and I want to share it with the world.


Hope you enjoy!!!!!