Math Contests
There are several major contests throughout the year, and the Math Club meets regularly to prepare for them. Feel free to show up for all or part of a session, whether or not you plan on participating in competitions.
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New IIT Math Contest!
Wednesday May 7, 12:50-1:40pm, E1 103
Problem of the Week at IIT!
The SIAM chapter at IIT hosts a weekly math competition for all undergraduate students. All questions require at most a Calculus II-level education, and can be submitted electronically.
The Weekly Problem »
These are some of the big contests we join in every year:
October : The Virginia Tech Regional Mathematics Contest. It is shorter, and a bit easier than the Putnam exam. In 2006, Keith Campbell tied for 11th place.
December : The Putnam is the most famous national math competition for undergraduates, and it takes place the first Saturday in December every year. In 2006, Keith Campbell made the list of Top Participants, and in 2007 Kevin Ventullo and Keith Campbell both made the list.
Old Putnam Problems and Other Resources »
February : The Math Modeling Contest (and Interdisciplinary Modeling Contest) takes place over one weekend. Students work in teams of size 3, choose between a discrete problems and a continuous problem. (This contest is different than the others.) If you're interested in this, please contact Professor Michael Pelsmajer.
March/April: As part of the Illinois Section of the MAA meeting, there is a student competition, usually held in the late afternoon on a Friday. At the 2007 ISMAA contest, we had teams that placed 2nd (Chris Mitillos, Laura Rodriguez-Mosquera, and Jeffrey Stanford), 3rd (Jongmin Lim, Young Cho, Jong-Yon Kim), sixth (Sangwook Lee, Mitch Isoda, Ricky Leavell), and eighth (Jon Beagley, Keith Campbell, Tony Parrillo). At the 2006 Illinois MAA Meeting, IIT teams took 1st place (Jonathan Beagley, Keith Campbell, Anthony Parillo), tied for 2nd place (Laura Rodriguez Masquera, Jeffrey Stanford, Christos Mitillos) with another team, and took 4th place (Elliot Barlow, Xuan Kang). 15 students in total attended that meeting. At the 2005 ISMAA meeting we participated in this competition and one of our teams took fourth place.
Old ISMAA Problems »
More problems: from Konhauser Problemfest, Macalester Problem of the Week, Purdue Problem of the Week.
Some potentially useful facts and formulas.
Good books for would-be problem solvers:
- Paul Zeitz "The Art and Craft of Problem Solving",
- Stephen G. Krantz "Techniques of Problem Solving",
- Arthur Engel "Problem-Solving Strategies".