Andover students Angeline Zhao ’25, Anthony Yang ’25, Eric Wang ’25, Tianyi Evans Gu ’25, and Yifan Kang ’24 competed in and won the Math- works Math Modeling (M3) Challenge.
A team of five Andover students achieved first place and the top prize of 20,000 dollars after traveling to New York City for the final round of the MathWorks Math Modeling (M3) Challenge on April 29. Competing against the top six of 655 international teams, Angeline Zhao ’25, Anthony Yang ’25, Eric Wang ’25, Tianyi Evans Gu ’25, and Yifan Kang ’24 delivered a 15-minute presentation on the statistical model they built during the first competitive stage.
During the first 14-hour round, the team constructed and tested various statistical models and produced a 31-page paper. Upon advancing to the final round, the team began preparing for the presentation over a month prior. One particular challenge Wang pointed to was the question and answer round, where the team responded to questions posed by the judges.
“The experience of presenting was really quite surreal. When you’re up there, you don’t remember much and words just flow out of your mouth automatically, but afterward, you really feel the adrenaline, and we all felt really good about how we did… Presenting was actually quite hard. I don’t really have that much experience with presenting so that was quite new and fun for me to try. The question and answer was particularly difficult; we had rehearsed question and answer a few times, but you can’t really expect what the judges will ask of you. It was a new experience, having to think on your feet,” said Wang.
In addition to support from their coach Khiem DoBa, Instructor in Mathematics, the team practiced by presenting to a few Andover faculty members, including Noureddine El Alam, Instructor in Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science. El Alam drew from his knowledge of finance, business, and statistics to provide concrete feedback on format, pitch strategy, and statistical content. He praised the team’s dedication and skill.
“It was really beautiful, and I thought they did a great job… I wasn’t surprised that they won, and I knew that they had something unique to share. I was impressed by their ease and confidence when they spoke. They were coachable and willing to receive feedback graciously,” said El Alam.
The M3 Challenge gathered high schoolers from across the U.S., England, and Wales. Kang enjoyed the opportunity to meet other young mathematicians and explore different approaches to the problem statement.
“During the competition, it was just fun to compete and work as a team with all the Uppers. It’s also really fun to just meet people from around the country. There was another team from the U.K. and they flew all over to New York for this competition. It was really exciting to meet new people,” said Kang.
Kang continued, “Honestly I’m surprised, and my teammates are probably [also] surprised, that there [were] so many different approaches to this single problem. When we were watching other teams’ presentations, we were surprised by their creative models and approaches to solving the problem. Sometimes they got different results, sometimes they got really similar results, [and] we were happy about that.”
Zhao mentioned a few highlights from her experience in the M3 Challenge. Alongside the hard work and stress the team experienced in the challenge, she recounted fun memories she shared with her teammates.
“The day of the 14-hour challenge was very fun, although it was so much work. I mostly just remember the panic and the chaos, but looking back, it was a really fun time, and afterward, we stayed up until 2:00 a.m. or something watching a movie… New York was a super great experience because we had the day before to explore the city and just have fun… We went to an all-you-can-eat barbecue [and on] the day of the competition… I got to see some of my friends [and] meet a lot of new people,” said Zhao.
In the future, Yang hopes Andover can continue to compete in the M3 Challenge and other applied math competitions. In contrast to competition and Olympiad math, Yang appreciated how the M3 Challenge focused on enacting real-world change.
“This is our first year doing it, so definitely, I would do it next year, or we could have another team do it, and we could advise them. Overall I think these are great competitions. It’s very different from normal competition math, where it’s pure math [and] you’re just spewing formulas. This is applied math where you’re using models to apply to real-world problems, and you can actually make change… I really like these kinds of competitions. I prefer this to competition math because this actually has real-life application,” said Yang.
Editor’s note: Tianyi Gu is a Managing Editor for The Phillipian.
