On Saturday, November 12, 80 students — from Oak Hill, Brown, F.A. Day, Bigelow, Bowen, Zervas, Memorial-Spaulding, and some private schools — gathered at Newton South HS for M Snake, a new, friendly mathematics competition created and run by NSHS students. For most participants, this was their first experience with math competitions, and there was a lot of excitement.
The event included lunch and prizes and was free for all participants, thanks to the generous sponsorship of The Village Bank, the Daily Challenge with Po-Shen Loh, the AoPS Academy Lexington, and Wolfram.
The morning was focused on two individual rounds: 30 questions in 60 minutes, then 7 harder questions in 30 minutes. After lunch, the highlight of the competition consisted of students in teams of four collaborating to answer questions in sets of three against the clock. Many teams were assigned randomly with students from different schools.
NSHS students were entirely responsible for organizing and running the event, including live grading, engaging with competitors and their parents, hosting the guest speaker, and awarding prizes. For three months beforehand, their preparation work involved writing problems, designing the competition website, doing community outreach, finding sponsors, communicating with parents, and much more.
The event went very smoothly, with a lot of positive feedback from parents. Prof. Po-Shen Loh, the coach of Team USA for the international Math Olympiad, attended the event and gave a talk for students and their parents about the use of math in real life. He also spoke highly of the event and praised its organizers. From the positive reactions of students and parents, it’s clear that there’s an appetite for an annual event like this in Newton.
The event ended with a statement from the founder of M Snake, NSHS junior Elena Baskakova, and the awards ceremony. Top scorers in the individual rounds were Stephen (Brown), Joshua (Oak Hill), Ryder (Oak Hill), Jason (Brown), Pia (F.A. Day) and Ranbeer (F.A. Day). In the collaborative team sprint round, the top teams were Brown Pi-thon, Math Maestros, and Mathketeers.