Grauer Teams Compete in 2020 Mathematical Modeling Contest

From Peter Mannisto, Math Teacher and Mathematical Modeling Advisor:

From November 4 to 17, Grauer high schoolers participated in the 23rd annual High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling (HiMCM). In this competition, students work in teams of four to solve a problem of real-world mathematical significance. They then explain their methods and results in a paper which is submitted to judges for evaluation. This is the fourth consecutive year that we have fielded teams for this contest, and for the first time, we had three teams competing!! The teams were as follows:

• Team #1: Amanda C. '21, Ava I. '21, Isabella F. '21, Thalia M. '21
• Team #2: Erik H. '21, Kevin M. '21, Gabriel S. '21, Jason W. '21
• Team #3: Joshua B. '22, Lourdes F. '22, Gage G. '22, Abby M. '22

The teams could choose from 2 different problems, as in previous years. Team #2 and Team #3 chose to solve a problem asking students to develop a ranking system for best summer jobs for a high schooler in Summer 2021. This ranking system would take into account certain aspects of a student's preferences (and perhaps other variables - it was up to the teams to decide which variables were relevant) and use those preferences to generate a ranked list of summer employment recommendations. Team #3 chose to solve a problem asking students to develop a plan for efficiently allocating funds for biodiversity conservation in Florida. As usual, both problems are clearly interesting, practical problems and well worth thinking about!

All three teams put in at least 2 full days of work as a team, together with extensive time on weeknights and weekends to get their papers finished. All three teams deserve congratulations and kudos for a job well done! Judging for this competition will be finalized sometime in January.