The Castle Home: MathCounts Video Challenge

May 6-10, 2015

What a whirlwind weekend! Team G.I.T. Stockholm's video finishing in the top four of 400 videos, earning a trip to Boston to present their video, meeting 250+ people from 50 states, 4 U.S. territories and a few other expat students... was an incredible experience for our kids.

Gabby, Ryan, Jacques, Mr. Carayol (team coach), Claudette and I left Stockholm Wednesday morning arriving in Boston 15 hours later. We checked in, met up with Aunt Jan, headed to dinner and called it a night... luckily, Mr. Carayol walked Gabby to her room where, to their surprise, two boys were already in bed for the night. Even though Gabby and her roommate had checked in earlier, the boys assigned to the same room because one had the same last name as Gabby's roommate. Mr. C sorted it out and all was good.

Thursday morning we were amazed at how many state teams were huddled in groups around the lobby practicing their math problems. Mr. Carayol checked the team in for the competition picking up bags of SWAG... just like Christmas - t-shirts, hats, water bottles, and a really complicated, expensive Texas Instruments calculator! We took the kids outside to practice their video presentation. Afterwards we had a quick tour of the Christian Science Monitor Mapparium... very cool large globe.

inside the Christian Science Monitor

Bodega, Boston - unassuming exterior

Bodega interior - the kids were impressed

After Heidi and Max arrived from Cleveland we took the Boston T (subway) to the famous Faneuil Hall for lunch. I really appreciate how 'modern' and clean Stockholm's trains and stations are!

The Freedom Trail - Boston

The Freedom Trail

The official kick-off for the MathCounts Competition began Thursday evening. Students and coaches had dinner and got to know each other more. Mr. Carayol connected with other coaches, exchanging resources, he was so excited when he scored a stack of new maths textbooks!

Thursday night Claudette, Heidi, Jan and I headed to a great, hole-in-the-wall restaurant Delux. Great food surrounded by kitschy Elvis decor and a Schlitz beer can Christmas tree.

Delux restaurant

the best ravioli!

Friday the team was busy meeting, greeting and promoting themselves at breakfast, lunch and dinner. They handed out basketball squeeze balls with their team logo and Swedish Fish. All students also trade state pins with each other. The American Embassy in Sweden was kind enough to give us 250 pins with the American and Swedish flags thanks to Claudette's request.

Friday morning our team practiced the dos and don'ts of their presentation while the 'mathletes' participated in the written competition. Based on Friday morning's scores, the top ten teams were announced at the Countdown Round Friday afternoon. The top 12 scoring students, from the top ten teams were then announced to compete in the Countdown Round... basically a game show format, one on one elimination until the last one standing wins a $20,000 college scholarship. Students had 45 seconds to answer questions. In most cases the question wasn't even done being read before it was answered. Aunt Jan thought she would work the problems along with the contestants... she gave up after the first one.

Friday morning rehearsal

afternoon countdown round

Saturday's Boston Globe

Here's a few of the questions: (answers at the bottom)

A sphere passes through the mid-points of the 12 edges of a cube that has edges of length 6 inches. What is the surface area of the sphere, in square inches? Express you answer in terms of pi.
Xavier randomly picks an integer x from 1 to 6, inclusive, and then Yvonne randomly picks an integer from x + 1 to 7, inclusive. What is the probability that Yvonne picks the number 3? Express your answer as a common fraction.
Two points, A and B, are chosen at random on the boundary of a circle. What is the probability that the length of chord AB is larger than the circle's radius? Express your answer as a common fraction.
Two positive integers, neither a multiple of 10, have a product of 10,000. What is the sum of the two integers?
What is the least positive integer n for which the sum of the first n positive integers is divisible by 100?

National Champion, Kevin Liu, an 8th grader from Carmel, Indiana.

To say that these 6th, 7th and 8th graders were humbling is putting it mildly! Past MathCounts alumni were invited to attend the Countdown Round... a majority of them from MIT. The mood Friday evening was much lighter and happier once the competition was behind the students.

While all students and coaches visited the Science Museum, Claudette, Heidi, Jan and I enjoyed dinner in the North End with my brother Steve, sister-in-law Sandy, niece Sarah and her husband Rick, nephews Aaron and Nick, sister Suzie, and Jazy (Stockholm friend Monica's daughter)! Post dinner we picked up Mike's pastries and met back at the Sheraton for dessert with the kids and Mr. C.

this place is always packed and crazy day and night

The big day, Saturday morning, the four video teams, dressed in outfits from their videos waited to present to the crowd of students. Each team introduced themselves, their video was shown and the MC asked a few fun questions. All students then voted on their favorite video.

team supporters - Jan, Claudette and Heidi

After the video presentations our group headed out for a duck tour of Boston, a great way to see the highlights of this wonderful city. After the tour we walked through the North End (Boston's Italian neighborhood) having pizza for lunch and taking in a few more landmarks.

Holocaust memorial

Regina's Pizza in the North End

Paul Revere and the Old North Church

North End street sign

sophisticated biking in the North End

Saturday night was the big awards dinner. Give a bunch of smart kids some plastic clappers and glow sticks and they are happy, the banquet hall sounded like we were being invaded by locusts! Many awards were handed out and the winning video announced. Even though our team didn't win we all had a great time! Here is Gabby's video recapping the whole trip: Our Trip to Boston.

awards banquet

so proud of Team G.I.T. Stockholm! G.I.T. = Georgia, Indiana, and Texas where each kid is from

dessert

Sunday morning, a full American breakfast at a nearby diner and a walk through the Boston Commons before buying our souvenirs and heading for the airport for the trek home.