The Eighth Annual Los Angeles Countywide 4th and 5th Grade Math Olympiads Tournament was hosted on March 14 by Linwood E. Howe Elementary School. Five Culver City school teams, making up 40 of the 150 participating students, competed in the individual and team events.
At the end of the day, the Culver City community had much to be extremely proud of with Lin Howe student Rohan Jain earning a 2nd place medal in the individual event and Farragut student Jakob Sykes-Reich earning a 3rd place medal.
In addition to the city’s five elementary schools, there were 20 other participating elementary schools from throughout the Los Angeles County. Three of the schools are listed as gifted magnets, four are LAUSD science and math magnets and two are private schools.
“I think the one hundred fifty smartest fourth and fifth grade kids in Los Angeles County are in this room,” said Steve Politis, the 98-year-old proctor from Welby Way Gifted School.
The problems in the competition are not the typical classroom math problems. For instance, in the individual event each Mathlete was allotted 30 minutes to solve 10 problems such as: “Every digit of a three-digit number is a 7 or a 9. How many such three-digits numbers are possible?” (Answer at end of article.)
In the team event, each five-member team had 20 minutes to work together to solve 10 problems such as “The perimeter of a big square is seven times the perimeter of a small square. In lowest terms, what fraction of the area of the big square is the area of the small square?” (Answer at end of article.)
The goal in organizing the tournament is to create an environment where girls and boys who enjoy the challenges of mathematics can be with others who feel the same way, hopefully stimulating them to pursue STEM careers (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
During the tournament evaluations one proctor wrote “It was great for some of the strong math students at our school to see just how many kids love math as much as they do.”
“It was fun. I was glad for the opportunity to participate,” Lin Howe 5th grade Mathlete Larissa Andrick said after the competition.
“It was hard, but we learned to work better as a team. Thumbs up,” El Marino 5th grade Mathlete Alexander Hamilton said. “It’s fun and challenging. The problems seemed easy but it was really easy to make mistakes on them.”
Every attending Mathlete received a certificate of participation to represent their accomplishment of being selected from the many students at their school. They also get a tournament tee shirt. Most important, they get the thrill and experience of academic competition in a challenging and fun environment.
The tournament ended with the Math Cheer (M…A…M…A…M A T H… M…A…M…A…M A T H…ADDITIION, SUBTRACTION, MULTIPLICATION, DIVISION… M…A…M…A…M A T H). When the participants said the cheer at the start of the day, it was ok. But, at the end of the day, the room resounded with energy!
The Lin Howe Math Tournament is sanctioned by the international Math Olympiads for Elementary and Middle Schools (MOEMS) organization in New York. The tournament committee spent months preparing for the event. Its success is due to the commitment of the committee, most specifically parent volunteer Meera Ichharam and retired principal Rosie LaBriola, as well as office manager Anissa McCullen, teacher Greg Holman and principal Dr. Kim Indelicato.
Mathletes and their chaperons were: Alexander Harrison, Benjamin Siegel, Bernardo Herzer, Carter Coffee, Darren Chew, Diego Nocera, Grace Weil, Mia Cho, Miro Garrett, Nathan Nakamoto, Sierra Nimnual, William Schultz; Chaperons Mitsuko Omuro, Alice Horiba and Kevin Coffee from the El Marino Team. Abel Abebe, Andre Saldanha, Cassidy Woolsey, Maher Kabir, Maya Zee, Tyson Brazil and Chaperon John Saldanha represented El Rincon.
Farragut, which finished in third place in the team event, was made up of Jakob Sykes-Reich, Mina Guirguis, Sarina Lee, Shane Revel, Wyatt Seal, John Kim and Chaperon Chanda Vy.
Representing La Ballona were Cynthia Flores, Dayne Thompson, Jesse Castillo, Naved Patel, Tawadi Kecken and Chaperon Traci Flowers.
Lin Howe was represented by Ada Meighan-Thiel, Cole Longworth, Ella Zare, Emily Kawano, Izzi Kessner, Joey Chabola, Johnny Fino, Larissa Andrick, Lena Klein, Nikos Tetradis, Rohan Jain, Uma Kolesnikow, Vanessa Andrick, Walker Penchansky, Zachary Rosenberg and Chaperons Christina Pryharski, Anurag Jain and Linda Rosenberg.
Answers:
Individual problem answer: 8.
Team problem answer: 1/49
