It’s not March yet, but word is flying around about some sort of madness—Math Madness. In November, the Brahma Math Team competed in the Math Madness competition against 250 other schools across the nation.
Math Madness, inspired by college basketball’s March Madness Tournament, is a nationwide competition between teams of five or more high school students involved in math-related activities. The 23 Diamond Bar High School students that participated signed up through Math Club or through DBHS Math Club advisor Howard Alcosser.
The top 64 performing teams from the general, or the League phase, continued to a bracket challenge, which consisted of five rounds. Notably, the Brahma Varsity Math Team made it to the second bracket round. Afterwards, the remaining top 5 teams competed in Division I, the top 10 in Division II, top 15 in Division III, and so on until Division V. The Brahmas were ranked number one in Division II, before tying in their last match. In the end, they finished 30 seconds after their final opposing team.
“I’m really glad the math team had this opportunity to participate in [Math Madness] this year. It was a fun experience and I look forward to it next year,” Alcosser commented.
The 30-minute weekly matches were held conveniently online, on the Interstellar web application, which allowed coaches to create virtual teams, then compete against the teams of other schools. These competitions were carried out either by two contending parties establishing a set time, or by the coaches entering their teams into a regular cycle of contests organized by the program. Depending on the coaches’ decisions, both teams could compete at the same time, or each team could finish the question set and submit their scores at different times.
Each match contained a set of 10 questions, which became increasingly difficult as the competition progressed. Though all members competed at the same time during the match, no collaboration among the teammates was allowed. The top 5 scores of the team members were averaged out to get a final score; if the teams happened to tie, as the Brahmas did, the fastest completing team would win.
Led by senior Corey Chen and junior Hall Chen, the Math Team prepared for the competition by taking numerous practice tests during lunchtime, either in the library, the actual competition site, or in Alcosser’s room. Alcosser, the club’s advisor and a DBHS Calculus teacher, helped guide the Brahmas through the preparation for the competition.
Sponsored by the American Mathematics Association, the goal of the tournament was to combine the esteem of athletic competitive achievement with the mental stimulation and excellence of academics.
“The whole math team just got closer because of it. We definitely appreciated Mr. Alcosser’s guidance,” senior Kimberly Wang said.
