It’s almost time for a few hundred high schoolers to go down for the count.
On Oct. 25, students from 60 high-schools will hit the digits at Emporia State University’s Math Day. And if a math competition sounds dry or dull ... well, you haven’t seen this one.
“This is the only place where I’ve ever seen people cheer about math,” said ESU math professor Connie Schrock, the event’s coordinator. “You go to a sporting event and you cheer. In math, you don’t usually go to a classroom and cheer when someone solves a problem. But here ....”
Yes, there are fans, there are T-shirts, there are people with videocameras. And at the center of it all, there is some pretty fast problem solving. Students compete in algebra, geometry and computer programming contests, along with a “math scramble” that can draw problems from any field of mathematics — a team might get statistics one round and trigonometry the next.
Students have between 30 seconds and two minutes to solve each problem and then 10 seconds to give answers to the proctor.
“The time pressure is difficult,” Schrock said. “Some teams wait for the smartest person to solve the problem. Others have learned to work as a team and solve pieces individually, then put it together.”
Math Day has been a going concern at ESU since at least the early 1970s. It was started by a math professor named Donald Bruyr (pronounced Brewer) who died of cancer in 1979. The competition is now formally named Donald L. Bruyr Mathematics Day in his honor.
One other similarity with football: Competing schools are divided up by size, with one set of awards given to Divisions One through Three, and another set to Divisions Four through Six.
And although Math Day is generally for high schoolers, there is the occasional exception.
“We’ve had schools bring gifted middle schoolers to the competition,” Schrock said. “It’s not something I encourage, but it has happened a few times.”
All competitions will be held in the ESU Memorial Union. The schedule for the day will be:
F 8:45 a.m. — Check in and refreshments at the Greek Room.
F 9:30 a.m. — General session, with a welcome by Rod Sobieski, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Webb Lecture Hall.
F 10 a.m. — Team algebra contest in Webb Lecture Hall. Individual geometry contest in the Colonial Ballroom. Computer programming contest in the Kanza Room.
F 11 a.m. — Team geometry contest in Webb Lecture Hall. Individual algebra contest in the Colonial Ballroom.
F Noon — Math scramble in Webb Lecture Hall.
F 1:20 p.m. — Awards presentation in the Memorial Union.