A total of 104 Michigan high school students, from 51 different schools, were honored for their achievement on the 46th Annual Michigan Mathematics Prize Competition at the Awards Day program held on March 8 at Delta College. This was the first year of the three-year term of director David Redman (Delta C).
Robert Devaney (Boston University) spoke on fractal games and movies, and Kenneth Rosen (AT&T Laboratories) spoke on cryptography and on graph theory. Robert Hough (Dow High School), spoke to the banquet about participation in the Michigan All-Star Math Team and the ARML competition. This year the Midwestern ARML, in which teams drawn from the MMPC top 100 compete against teams from around the country, will be held May 31 at the University of Iowa.
The first-place Gold Award winner and Ford Motor Company Scholar is Anant Gupta (Troy High School). The second-place Gold Award went to Robert Hough (Dow High School). The third-place Gold Award went to Eric Wucherer (Ann Arbor Pioneer High School). Silver Award winners at the first level: Andrew Liu (Ann Arbor Huron High School), second level: Colin Clarke (Cranbrook Kingswood School), and Daniel Poon (Ann Arbor Huron High School), and third-level: Jeffrey Madsen (Groves High School), Hankyul Lee (Cranbrook Kingswood School), and James Van Loon (Grosse Pointe North High School). In addition 41 Bronze Awards were given, and 54 students received Honorable Mention.
The top 50 students received over $31,800 in scholarships in amounts ranging from $500 to $2,600. Thanks go to the corporate and other donors to the MMPC scholarship fund. The Honorable Mention winners received copies of books from the speakers at the Awards Day program: Handbook of Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics by Kenneth Rosen (CRC Press, 1999, ISBN 0849301491) or Fractals: A Tool Kit of Dynamics Activities by Jonathan Choate, Robert L. Devaney, and Alice Foster (Key Curriculum Press, 1998, ISBN 1559533552). We would like to thank the Michigan Council of Teachers of Mathematics for their generous donation that covered a portion of the cost of these books.
Part I of the MMPC is a 40-question multiple choice test, which this year was administered on October 9. The top 1237 scorers were invited to take Part II on December 4. There were 1171 Part II participants.
The official web site of the competition (http://www.delta.edu/math/mmpc) contains all information about the program including scheduling, registration materials, and previous exams with solutions. Part I of the competition is given in the fall of each year.
The Director Says “Thank You!”
You might know some of the people behind the scenes of the competition, but we would still like to bring them to your attention and formally thank them. We apologize in advance if we do not mention all of the significant contributions to the competition.
Previous MMPC directors have been very generous with their time, insuring a smooth transition. In particular we thank the outgoing director Robert Messer (Albion C), but also Ruth Favro (LTU) and Steven Schlicker (GVSU).
The examination committee works diligently behind the scenes preparing Part I and Part II: William Sledd (chair, MSU), Ed Aboufadel (GVSU), Eddie Cheng (OU), and John Clifford (UM–Dearborn). They quickly and patiently resolved all points that were brought to them by the various reviewers who in turn deserve a great deal of thanks, though they are too numerous to mention here.
The 74 volunteers from 24 institutions around the state who attended Grading Day did an outstanding job. The generous gift of their time is essential to the success of the competition. They are listed on the MMPC Web site.
The MMPC supervisors at the participating schools are essential, collecting information and organizing participants, keeping timely and frequent contact with the director. If you know a supervisor at a participating school, thank them, and if you have any contacts in your local high schools encourage them to consider participating if they do not do so already.
My colleagues at Delta College who tirelessly counted, stacked, sorted, collated, packed, addressed, loaded, unloaded, advised, proofread, graded, regraded, and generally worked to reduce my stress level deserve a big "thank you!", though they are too numerous to mention here. The office staff lead by Linda Nadolski deserves many thanks for their logistical support. The administration of Delta College has also contributed a great deal of practical support.
David Redman, Delta College
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