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Taking On the Best and Brightest Math Students in the World
At 6 a.m. on Saturday, Nov.11, 12 members of the Westminster Math Club — Boyan Alipiev ’19, James Chun ’19, Albert Gao ‘18, Kevin Kuang ’19, Yuna Lee ’19, Katie Neilsen ’18, Liam Seeley ’20, Mary Su ’18, Memo Tejapaibul ’20, Vincent Wang ’19, Nick Wee ’18 and Leona Zhang ’18 —boarded Westminster van No. 33 and quietly took their seats.
Their driver, math teacher Dan Aber, checked their backpacks and confiscated all cell phones, computers, calculators, straight edges, slide rules and abacuses. Where they were headed, he explained, only paper, a sharp pencil and a sharp mind were allowed.
“Today, all you need is a No. 2 pencil and a No. 1 mind,” Mr. Aber exclaimed. No one laughed.
They were headed to take on over 800 of the best and brightest math students in the world. They were headed to Harvard University for the 2017 Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament.
After a two-hour ride to Cambridge and a brisk walk to the Science Center, the mighty 12 made their way to lecture hall C. Starting at 9 a.m., they faced a steady stream of complex math problems (written and compiled by Harvard and MIT undergraduates) for the next seven hours and 15 minutes (minus 90 minutes for lunch: quick, what’s the total time they spent working on the problems?).
Led by Math Club President Albert Gao, the Westminster Black team took 40th place in the Team Round, out of 143 total teams. Additionally, Albert finished 18th in the individual Theme Round.
Fortified by chocolate chip cookies from Subway, the group headed back to Simsbury, tired but satisfied.
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