2010 HiMCM commentary

2010 HiMCM commentary

 

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摘要如下：

Contest Director’s Article

William P. Fox Department of Defense Analysis Naval Postgraduate School Monterey, CA 93943 wpfox@nps.edu

The High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling (HiMCM) completed its thirteenth year in excellent fashion. The mathematical and modeling ability of students, and faculty advisors, is evident in the professional submissions and work being done. The contest is still moving ahead slowly, growing with a positive first derivative, and consistent with our positive experiences from previous HiMCM contests.

This year the contest consisted of 295 teams with a total of 1131 students from 52 schools. These institutions represented twentytwo states and three different countries. Of the 1131 students, almost 40% were female students. The breakdown was 439 female and 692 male students. There were 31 all-female teams this year. This year, we again charged a registration fee of $75.

The teams accomplished the vision of our founders by providing unique and creative mathematical solutions to complex openended real-world problems. This year the students had a choice of two problems, both of which represent real-world issues.

Commendation: All students and advisors are congratulated for their varied and creative mathematical efforts. Of the 295 teams, 161 submitted solutions to ProblemAand 134 to Problem B. The 36 continuous hours available to work on the problem provided for quality papers; teams are commended for the overall quality of their work.

Many teams had female members. There were 439 female participants on the 295 teams. There were 1131 total participants, so females made up over 38.8% of the total participation, showing this competition is for both genders. This percentage is almost triple the percentage of woman in other math competitions. There was at least one female on most of the teams and 10.5% of the teams were all female (31 teams).

Teams again proved to the judges that they had “fun” with their chosen problems, demonstrating research initiative and creativity in their solutions. This year’s effort was a success!

Judging:

We ran three regional sites in December 2010. They are: Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA Francis Marion University in Florence, SC Carroll College in Helena, MN

Each site judged papers for problemsAand B. The papers judged at each regional site may or may not have been from their respective region. Papers were judged as Outstanding, Meritorious, Honorable Mention, and Successful Participant.All finalist papers for the Regional Outstanding award were sent to the national judging. For example, eight papers may be discussed at a Regional Final and only four selected as Regional Outstanding, but all eight papers are judged for the National Outstanding award. Papers receive the higher of the two awards.

The national judging chooses the best of the best to receive the National Outstanding award. The national judges commended the regional judges for their efforts and found the results were very consistent. We feel that this regional structure provides a good structure for the future as the contest continues to grow.