The Palo Alto High School Math Club will host its annual math contest tomorrow after school in Room 706, according to Alvin Kim, the club’s public relations officer. According to Kim, the competition consists of three rounds: an individual round, a collaborative round and a lightning round. During the individual round, every participant will answer the same set of questions, and individual scores will be totaled. The collaborative round allows teams of three to work together at the same time to solve a set of problems. In the lightening round, each team works together in succession to solve a set of problems; the first person works on a problem in a set amount of time, then passes it to the next person, and the last person writes the final answer.
Each member of the winning team will receive $25, while those on the second place and third place teams will recieve $15 and $5, respectively.
Kim encourages all students to participate in this event, which he believes to be different from most math contests.
“There are many math contests that are extremely rigorous and require a lot of time commitment to do well in,” Kim said. “ I think that scares a lot of people away from math contests. Contests like the Annual Team Math Contest, which require no prior studying, show that math is something that is approachable by everyone.”Based on last year’s attendance, Math Club President Nathan Pinsker hopes for a large turnout.“Usually, we’ve seen about 30 to 40 people show up each year, so that’s what I’d be hoping for this year as well,” Pinsker said. Kim aims to make this event enjoyable to all its participants and promote future attendance. “Hopefully, everyone who goes has tons of fun and will pursue more math events in the future,” Kim said.