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1:10 p.m., April 16, 2003--Two groups of UD students recently were recognized for their achievement and participation in COMAP’s 2003 Mathematical Contest in Modeling.
COMAP, the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications, is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve mathematics education for students of all ages. The competition allowed teams of up to three students to participate in a mathematical modeling contest judged by mathematicians, math educators and others in fields directly related to mathematics.
The members of team ’pi’—Eli Faulkner, a senior math major from Clayton, Kerrie Smith, a senior mechanical engineering major from Bear, and Matt Surles from Hockessin, a senior math major—won honorable mention for their work on “Problem A: The Stunt Person.”
Team ‘e’—Nate Allen, a senior math major from Randolph, Vt., Sumanth Swaminathan, a junior chemical engineering major from Ambler, Pa., and Paul Vishnevetsky, a senior with a double major in computer information sciences and math from Wilmington—earned a meritorious designation for their work on “Problem B: Gamma Knife Treatment Planning.”
Lou Rossi, professor of mathematics, served as faculty adviser for both teams.
The contest, which included 638 teams from North America, Europe and Asia, began Feb. 6 when two open-ended problems were released to the contestants via the World Wide Web. Once the contest began students were not allowed to contact anyone outside of their team for help. The teams had four days to figure out a solution to one of the problems.
Practitioners in government, industry or academia typically develop problems for the competition. Several past problems have evolved into student projects or research.
For more information on the competition and this year’s problems visit [www.comap.com/undergraduate/contests/mcm].
Article by Emily Rosenblum, AS2004
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