Home
About Me Extracurriculars
CS Humanities Language Math Modeling Physics STEM I STEM2

Math Modeling

Mrs. Burns

Math Modeling is a class taught by Mrs. Burns. This class isn’t like a regular math class with a set formula to solve a problem. Instead, to solve the problems, we must combine what we have learned from various courses and units. Throughout this class, we work with multiple problem sets and apply our knowledge to real-world problems. We started the beginning of the year by learning about shuffling, which led to the subtopics of bases, powers, and mods. We then moved on to the problem sets for Exeter 2 and 3, which discuss topics such as transformations, trigonometry, and more. We also participate in many competitions throughout the year. Feel free to take a look at some of my work below!

HiMCM

Every year, Mass Academy students participate in the High School Math Contest in Modeling (HiMCM). HiMCM is a 36-hour math competition where students form into four groups and choose one of the two real-world problems to tackle. Within the time period given, students have to develop a mathematical model as a solution to the prompt and write a 20-page paper explaining said answer. My group (Team 12521) included Mihika Chalasani, Anyee Li, Naga Vikram, and I. Although the competition was challenging, having a 2-day sleepover and pulling an all-nighter on one of those nights really brings four people together. On our first night, we chose to tackle the problem that dealt with the decline in honeybee populations. In order to address this problem, we first did some background research and then started to develop our three models for the different parts of the question. After finishing our models on the second day, we began writing our paper discussing our solution. HiMCM was definitely an experience to remember!

Epsilon School

The Epsilon School is an example of a math modeling project we worked on this year. For this assignment, we had to decide the most beneficial way to distribute seven teachers among the nine departments. Joseph Yu, Anne Tie, Mihika Chalasani, and I decided that the most efficient way to do so was creating a system modeled off apportionment, the process of dividing and selecting how many representatives each state could get throughout history. We created four separate models: the Jefferson method, the Adams method, the Huntington Hill Method, and the Hamilton Method. Take a look at the presentation below to learn more about our models!