In a tournament where brains trumped brawn, two local eighth-graders earned a chance to strut their math skills at the national MathCounts competition in Washington, D.C. in May.
Wearing shirts imprinted with mathematic puns such as "Easy as pi," 78 students from 18 schools across Arizona competed Saturday in Tucson to determine who among them really knew their polynomials from their theorems.
"It has a lot more to do with logic than just adding and subtracting," was how Charlie Torres described it.
The eighth-grader was one of five students competing from Corona Foothills Middle School in Vail, which entered the competition for the first time this year.
In the final round, the top 10 highest-scoring students went head-to-head sans calculator to answer a series of timed math questions for the right to one of four spots on the national team.
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In the end, Julie Zhang and Eric Xiao — eighth-graders at Alice Vail Middle School and Richard B. Wilson K-8 School, respectively — placed second and fourth in the individual competition and advanced to nationals.
The two remaining spots went to students from Tempe, Jonathon Horton and Joshua Steele.
For Zhang it was a bit of redemption after her team, Alice Vail, lost first place to Tucson's Sonoran Science Academy in the regional competition last month.
"That was one of my goals this time, to beat them," she said. "So after I heard I made it to fourth place it was like 'whew.' "
Though she technically entered the final round in fourth place, Zhang's performance eventually landed her in second.
"It's a pretty exciting experience. You usually don't think you're going to get that far. Then they call your name and … " Xiao said, his voice trailing off as he broke into a huge smile.
The students have a passion for mathematics and the MathCounts program fosters it, said Randy Moon, a math teacher at Alice Vail and a MathCounts coach for the past 22 years. "I learned as much math from them as they did from me."
The students weren't the only ones fighting nerves.
Phyllis Spence, mother of sixth-grader Richard Spence from Sonoran Science Academy, admitted having trouble sleeping the night before. Watching her son compete in the final round, her emotions, ranging from ecstatic enthusiasm to nervous tension, were clearly visible.
Spence ultimately placed fifth in the individual competition.
"It was pretty hard but I still love it. I'll be back next year," he said.
Since the start of the school year the teams have spent weeks together practicing math — solving problems and explaining their solutions to each other, sometimes to the point of exhaustion.
In one case, "at the end of the day, we were burnt out," said Evan Keyes, also an eighth-grader at Alice Vail. But "we've bonded as a group of friends because we do math together."
This was the first year the program's state competition was held in Tucson, at Canyon del Oro High School, which was made possible by funding from Raytheon, among others, said MathCounts state program coordinator Brad Novacek.
MathCounts "stresses the importance of math to students at the middle-school level, which is when they're starting to think about what they might want to do," he said.
It is also a haven for students from the peer pressure that increasingly puts an emphasis on not performing well, Novacek added.
Once in Washington, the four will pair up against hundreds of students from across the country, as well as Guam and Puerto Rico.
There's a probability question in there somewhere, but it's best left to the students.
1st — Jonathon Horton, 7th grade, Veritas Homeschoolers, Tempe
2nd — Julie Zhang, 8th grade, Alice Vail Middle School, Tucson
3rd — Joshua Steele, 7th grade, Veritas Homeschoolers, Tempe
4th — Eric Xiao, 8th grade, Wilson K-8 School, Tucson
1st — Veritas Homeschoolers, Tempe.
2nd — Alice Vail Middle School, Tucson, under head coach Randy Moon: Julie Zhang, Kael McCallum, Evan Keyes, Lee Burbe.
3rd — Sonoran Science Academy, Tucson, under head coach Ridvan Bircicek: Nicolas Baird, Brian Cloutier, Alex Montminyn, Richard Spence.
4th — Hendrix Junior High, Mesa.
5th — Not available.
6th — R.B. Wilson K-8 School, Tucson, under head coach Anne Held: Dorothy Joseph, Juliet Kim, Eric Xiao, David Zeng.
7th — Corona Foothills Middle School, Vail, under head coach Brent Edwards: Tanner Mapes, Laura Kitterman, Nancy Beardsley, Charlie Torres.
Source: MathCounts tournament organizers
