It took 14 hours, but five students from High Technology High School solved a math problem that was in front of them and their reward is a trip to a national mathematical competition.
After the team from High Technology High School, Lincroft, submitted their answer to the MathWorks Math Modeling (M3) Challenge during the “challenge weekend” in March, they became one of six teams (out of 900 teams) chosen to advance to a national mathematics competition in New York City on April 30, according to math teacher Dr. Raymond Eng.
The students – Yihan Wu, Eric Chai, Steven Lui, Kyle Lui and Adithya Paramasivam – will advance to the competition.
According to Eng, the annual M3 Challenge requires the completion of one topical math question that pertains to a problem the United States is facing. Eng said High Technology High School students have placed in the finals nearly every year since the competition began 12 years ago.
Eng said the students used mathematical modeling to recognize a solution that would help solve food insecurity in the United States, primarily in Texas. He said teams were asked to come up with model-based strategies to quantify, reduce and repurpose the most food for the least cost.
“This team was chosen as a finalist because they had one of the most credible models used to analyze the problem,” Eng said.
Wu described mathematical modeling as a process that relies on research in order to determine a correlation in the information being used to solve a “real world” problem.
Wu, a senior among the four other junior students, identifies as the unspoken leader of the mathematical team, according to her teammates.
Eng said students who participated in the challenge were allocated 14 hours of continuous research before submitting a proposed solution to the problem to the M3 board of mathematicians.
Eng continually stressed that organization was a pivotal player when it came to working together as a team of five students on one open-ended mathematical problem with no definitive answer.
According to Paramasivam, the M3 challenge was divided into three components. The first component asked students to determine whether the amount of food thrown away in Texas could feed Texans who were not eating enough on a weekly basis. The second portion of the challenge required students to access four types of families (in Texas) and determine what amount of food is being thrown out each week. The final component called for a solution aimed toward repurposing the amount of food that was being thrown out in Texas each week.
“We looked at food donations, bio-fuels, composting and animal feed. We needed to determine which of these solutions would be the most practical. We concluded that Texas has more than enough food to feed its insecure population. A family with two parents and two kids also wastes the most amount of food … we found that the most efficient way to repurpose and recover food was through food donations and biofuel,” Paramasivam said.
When asked how the students conducted their research, Paramasivam said they relied on the data provided by MathWorks, the competition’s sponsor, and obtained additional information from the U.S. Borough of Labor Statistics.
“We did a 10-hour practice run in order to prepare for this challenge,” Paramasivam said.
Wu said she was amazed by the outcome that took shape by formulating an answer to a mathematical question.
“A lot of the stuff we learn in class is very theoretical. Here, we were given an actual problem that required us to synthesize knowledge from over the years …This competition allows us to see the possibilities that come from simple math,” Wu said.
The students said they were able to determine Texas disregards one-third of the food thrown away in the United States. Similarly, Wu said they found Texas could feed its insecure food population by recovering just seven percent of the food they throw in the garbage.
The upperclassmen said they owe their success in mathematics to the academics provided at High Technology High School.
“The courses offered here really open us up to various software, such as MathLab and LaTeX. This was very essential for math modeling. Without the previous introduction to these programs, we would have been lost as to where to begin. We would have spent more time figuring out how to start, rather than focusing on the problem,” Chai said.
The High Tech students said they are adding the finishing touches to their presentation, which will debut at the competition in New York City held at the end of the month.
