Last weekend, grade 9 students Anooshree Sengupta, Maya Kumar, Aria Coalson, Jessica Susai and Aliesa Bahri, also known as the Infinities Vex Robotics team, won the Design Award at the Vex Robotics World Championships in Louisville, Ky. Of the 450 teams in attendance, the Infinites were one of five division award winners. This latest win caps off a season of achievements for the team, which won two regional tournaments and a slew of awards earlier this year, including the Create Award at the NorCal State tournament and two Excellence Awards. Congratulations!
Harker’s team came in third place at this year’s state Mathcounts competition, held at Stanford on March 21. Harker team members comprised Rose Guan and Katherine Tian, grade 8, and Cynthia Chen and Jeffrey Kwan, grade 7. “They did an excellent job at the competition and placed third as a team among 33 contending teams,” said Vandana Kadam, middles school math department chair, who coached the team. The competition included 33 teams with 174 individual contestants. Tian placed sixth individually and came in fourth in the speed math contest, called the countdown round. The top 16 students in the written round were invited to take part in the countdown round. Tian beat her opponents in all rounds and made it to the semifinals but lost in that round.
Chen finished 19th, Guan 27th and Kwan 28th. Only two points separated Tian from Chen. “The ranking difference tells you how tough a competition we have in the Bay Area,” Kadam, said.
“Needless to say, it was a tough competition with William Hopkins, Hyde, Kennedy, Redwood and Miller schools also fielding extremely strong teams,” Kadam added. “Harker’s team members had a consistent high performance on the individual rounds which served them well. With the kind of competition we see around here, the rankings keep changing every year. Last year Harker placed first at the state Mathcounts, while Cupertino Middle School and Miller Middle School came in second and third, respectively.” Please congratulate the students on their accomplishment!
Eight Harker students qualified to take the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO) or the United States of America Junior Mathematical Olympiad (USAJMO) exams! These tests, which will be taken on campus tomorrow and Wednesday, are qualifiers for the 2015 U.S. Math Olympiad Team.
Students who qualified to take tests are seniors Patrick Lin and Ashwath Thirumalai; juniors Lawrence Li and Richard Yi; sophomores Kai Ang, Peter Wu and David Zhu; and freshman Swapnil Garg.
The tests are six-question, two-day, nine-hour essay/proof examinations. Students qualify by taking the American Mathematics Competition (AMC) exam and then, after passing that, the American Invitational Mathematics Exam (AIME).
The AIME is a 15-question three-hour test given to those who rank in the top 5 percent, or score at least 100, on the AMC 12 high school mathematics contest (formerly known as the AHSME), and those who rank in the top 2.5 percent, or score at least 120, on the AMC 10.
Only about 500 students out of 350,000 who take the AMC exam qualify for either the USAMO or USAJMO exams. Of that 500, 12 then qualify for the prep team based on their scores. A variety of other top finishers also may be invited under various qualifications. These students then attend the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program (MOSP), where instructors select the six-person team (plus supernumeraries) to compete in the International Mathematical Olympiad in Chiang Mai, Thailand, from July 4-16. Go Math Eagles!
The Hurrikeynes are going to New York! The team, comprising seniors Aaron Huang, Ashwath Thirumalai, Leo Yu, Rohith Kuditipudi and Steven Wang, was named one of the top four teams in the nation in the National Economics Challenge, administered by the Council for Economic Education. This is the most prestigious high school economics competition, with more than 10,000 students participating nationwide, said Sam Lepler, economics teacher and the team’s coach. Harker won the Northern California finals on April 7; our championship team, the “Hurrikeynes,” then competed against all the other state winners in an exam on April 14. The Hurrikeynes are one of just four top U.S. teams moving on to the National Championships in New York. The team earned an all-expense paid trip to NYC to compete for the No. 1 spot! “I am so incredibly proud of them and so excited for the finals!” said Lepler. “Yay!!”
Jonathan Ma, grade 11, was selected to attend the U.S. Physics Team Training Camp this year. He was one of only 20 students chosen nationwide. Ma will travel to the University of Maryland to attend the camp from May 17-28, where the team members will improve laboratory and problem-solving skills, hear lectures by prominent physicists and work with peers.
“The competition for a position on the U.S. Physics Team is intense and each student who participated in the 2015 selection process is deserving of recognition. They are the future of America’s success in physics related fields. AAPT is honored to recognize the exceptional scholars who qualified for the team and to support their further participation in the International Physics Olympiad,” said Dr. Beth A. Cunningham, Executive Officer of the American Association of Physics Teachers.
The training camp is a crash course in the first two years of university physics. Students learn at a very fast pace. They have an opportunity to hear about cutting edge research from some of the community’s leading physicists. At the end of the training camp, five team members will be chosen to represent the U.S. in Mumbai, India, at the 46th International Physics Olympiad, July 5-12.