On Saturday, February 4, 2012, ten students from Manhattan Beach Middle School participated in the Westside/South Bay Los Angeles Regional MathCounts competition held at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach. Congratulations to the following ten participants for MBMS' strongest showing ever in a regional MathCounts event: Shubhayu Bhattacharyay, Owen Konsmo, Andrew Liu, Ethan Lu, Michelle Lu, Peter Lu, Meera Nagpal, Pooja Nagpal, Jonathan Sklar, and Tanner Yamada. The final team of Bhattacharyay, Konsmo, Liu, and Yamada won first place out of 19 teams at the event. In addition, competing as an individual, Ethan Lu was the top individual scorer and qualified to go to state. Peter Lu placed third of all individual competitors. Six MBMS students placed in the top 20 out of 162 total competitors. The team of Bhattacharyay, Konsmo, Liu, and Yamada will continue on and represent both MBMS and the Manhattan Beach Unified School District at the MathCounts state competition on March 17 at U.C. Irvine.

 

MathCounts is a national middle school math competition program sponsored by Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. The mission of MathCounts is to inspire excellence, confidence, and curiosity in U.S. middle school students through fun and challenging math programs. The competition typically consists of three rounds: Sprint, Target, and Team. The Sprint Round is comprised of 30 problems that must be completed in 40 minutes. Only the most capable students can finish all of the problems in the time allowed. The Target Round offers eight problems presented to competitors in four pairs. Students are given six minutes to solve each pair of multi-step problems that require strong mathematical reasoning and problem solving skills. Finally, in the Team Round, team members collaborate to solve ten problems in twenty minutes. During this round, team member interaction is expected and encouraged.

Prior to participating in regional chapter competitions, students compete at the school level to earn one of ten team spots. Following the regional event, finalists progress to the state competition. The best mathematicians at the state level will advance to the national competition which will be held in Orlando, Florida, later this year.

 

The MBMS MathCounts mathletes were supported throughout their journey by coaches Justin Warfield and Dr. Mitch Sklar who fostered a strong team spirit and made math enjoyable while providing excellent preparation and mentorship. To learn more about MathCounts, log on to https://mathcounts.org/.