Math Modeling is vastly different from other mathematics courses as it focuses on applied mathematics. During the course, students learn the tools necessary to use math to model and understand real world problems. It includes aspects of geometry, trigonometry, algebra, calculus and more. Collaboration is heavily encouraged as students combine their knowledge to solve problems. In class, students work on modeling mathematical situations based on prompts using their skills, solve mini challenge problems that push students to their limits, and solve “Problems of the Week” in which students work with others to solve large math modeling problems.
As one of the problems of the week, my group was tasked to find a way to determine what day of the week someone was born based on the date they were born. To begin, we were only given a calendar of October 2023 and we were not allowed to use any outside sources to find dates. This document details our thought process when finding a solution, as well as our final working method on how to find the day you were born. As well, code is included which runs our solution automatically so you can find the day you where born. View here.
As part of the Math Modeling course, we compete in a national competition known as the “Modeling the Future Challenge”. In this challenge, we compete in teams to create a mathematical model of a real world problem for risk mitigation purposes. Our team has chosen to model the risk airlines take when they overbook their planes and potentially have to remove passengers. We have started preliminary work on our project setting up our problem and defining the risk factors. So far we have moved on from the initial round and are now meeting with an actuarial mentor to help with modeling the problem. Here is our initial submission for the first round which details the process of defining our problem as well as learning necessary skills through various situation prompts. View here.