By Lexie V. Owen | Echo
For the second time in three weeks, a Taylor team has emerged victorious in an academic arena. Taylor's math competition team took first place at the 50th annual Indiana Collegiate Mathematics Competition (ICMC) following the Ethics Bowl team's national championship win on February 22.
This competition is part of the Indiana section of the Mathematical Association of America Conference, which Taylor hosted this year. Thirty-three teams represented colleges from all over Indiana, including Wabash, Purdue and Indiana University.
Each team, composed of three students, is given eight ten-point math problems and two hours to complete as many as possible. First place goes to the highest-scoring team.
Though knowledge gained from upper-level math courses may increase the chances of finishing more problems, most questions are designed to challenge a student's logic skills and creativity in problem solving.
"It's not a typical test like you take in a class," mathematics professor Matt DeLong said. "Usually if the test is written well, the questions don't require a lot of sophisticated content knowledge. It's not like testing who has had the most classes, but rather who is the cleverest and who can see the clearest."
Taylor's team, made up of seniors Daniel Crane, Josh Kiers and Claire Spychalla, won first place with 57 out of 80 points. This placed them ahead of the second place team from Rose-Hulman by a full 10 points.
"Of the eight problems, we figured out six of them," said Crane, an interdisciplinary mathematics major who has participated in these competitions since his sophomore year. "So we figured we'd get somewhere between 55 and 60. When they announced that we had won with a score of 57, I felt relieved. It was the last competition I will be doing with Taylor, so it felt great to know we got first place after coming so close the past several years."
Taylor's math competition teams have been active for the past 15 years and are coached by DeLong and assistant mathematics professor Derek Thompson.
Students interested in competing in future competitions are welcome to participate in weekly "Pizza and Problem Solving" sessions.
"Either Dr. DeLong or Dr. Thompson bring pizza and some competition-style math problems," Crane said. "Students show up to work on them for about 45 minutes and then present solutions to any problems solved. The professors coach us on certain techniques and tricks to solving certain kinds of problems. So those sessions are often very helpful during the competitions."
These teams practice weekly for two months in the fall and six weeks in the spring. They usually participate in competitions twice per semester. The last time a Taylor team won ICMC was in 2009, but according to DeLong, it came as no surprise that this year's senior team took home first place.
"We were just really grateful," DeLong said. "We have a tremendous bunch of students who have been a real gift to our department. It's fun to see them recognized like that."
