The math modeling class at Mass Academy is taught by Mrs. Durost and is one of the most interesting classes at MAMS. In this class, we go into a variety of math related units such as modulus arithmetic, statistics, and geometry. The class isn't structured to follow a standard class's curriculum, but even so, we still learn things from many different topics. Because many people come into the school with different mathematics backgrounds, the first half of the year is structured around topics that nobody will be very experienced with, whereas in the second half, the grade splits into two groups, with people who have already taken AP Calc BC going into Calc 3 and the rest of the grade is going into Precalculus topics.
Every so often in math class, we do a problem of the week (POW), they aren't actually weekly, but they're longer problems that help us think outside of the box. One of these problems was about estimating the day of the week any given day is on. To simplify the problem, we only had to consider dates after 1900 to disregard years with more complex leap year rules. Using modulus arithmetic, we were able to create an equation to determine the day of the week on any given day of any year from 1900 to modern day.
If you're having trouble viewing the pdf, click here!
In math modeling class, there are a lot of math competitions we enter, and one of them is called HiMCM. HiMCM is a 2 week long competition where you create a model to solve a math problem. However, at Mass Academy, we only have 50 hours to complete the math problem because we take two entire days of school to focus on it. Because the problems are still being scored, I cannot publicize the official HiMCM, but I can give access to a practice HiMCM that we did in class the week before the official competition. My group chose to solve a problem to create a triathlon sending groups to complete the entire event in under 5.5 hours. Abhiraam Venigalla, Ruchir Kafle, and I were able to accomplish this by separating all of our participants by age, gender, and competition groups. This competition was incredibly fun, but it took a lot of effort and very little sleep to complete.
If you're having trouble viewing the pdf, click here!
One of our long term projects in Math is called Modeling the Future Challenge. In this challenge, we are tasked with coming up with a math model for a real world problem. My group, made up of Ishan Kasam, Abhiraam Venigalla, Salman Azzimani, Neil Gupta, and I, are creating a mathematical model to give recommendations on how to reduce AI water waste. The pdf below is of the Senario Quest, which is the document we had to fill out before the competition began to advance onto semifinalists.
If you're having trouble viewing the pdf, click here!