Math modeling has shown itself to be an interesting course; we’ve covered a lot of different areas of math like number theory, statistics, math modeling, and precalculus. I especially enjoy the group work we get to do, like Challenge Problems and Problems of the Week, because collaborating on problems allows us to help each other understand the material and pull from our own knowledge, practicing explaining it to everyone else.
Birthday POW
For the Birthday Problem of the Week, we were asked to make an algorithm that finds a person’s original birthday day of the week based on their age and birthday date, only given the calendar for October and the number of days in each month. The most important part of this assignment was making the algorithm as easy to understand as possible.
MTFC Project
For the better part of this school year, my group and I are be working on a math modeling project for Modeling the Future Challenge (MTFC). This involves writing a 25 page paper explaining the model and its purpose. My group and I are doing a project on invasive species and world trade, looking at the risks of trade between countries with vastly ecosystems and how these might be mitigated.