Welcome to the Montlake Math Challenge! The MMC is an after school program for students who love math and want to expand their mathematical knowledge. The program's goal is to introduce students to exciting mathematical ideas that are not part of the standard curriculum. We will emphasize a hands-on learning environment in which students will explore new concepts in small groups.
Meeting Times: Tuesday, 3:30-4:30
Location: Room 9 (Mr. Schultz' classroom)
Instructors: Eric Nitardy, Katia Nepom
Contact Information: nithardt [at] u [dot] washington [dot] edu
About instructors:
Eric Nitardy: After working in the horticulture industry for many years, Eric has rekindled a childhood interest in mathematics and is retraining to teach it. He is a recent graduate of the University of Washington where he participated in and later became a teaching assistant in the University’s Honors Math Program. Eric was the math department’s outstanding Bachelor of Science graduate and plans to attend graduate school in Education in 2011. He looks at Math as bit of an art and a bit of a science but always challenging and fun.
Katia Nepom: Katia Nepom is a second year undergraduate student at the University of Washington studying computer science, math and psychology. She has been participating in math clubs, math circles and math competitions starting in middle school and lead the high school math club for her junior and senior year. In her free time you are likely to find her ballroom dancing, playing Frisbee, eating, or solving math puzzles.
Announcements:
- 04-05-11: The discussion of extended sums continues.
- 03-29-11: Big Sums: Extended sums.
- 03-22-11: A continuation of last week's puzzles including:
- The island eye color puzzle.
and begin discussion of extended sums.
- 03-15-11: A potpourri of puzzles including:
- Count the edges on a complete graph.
- Find a winning strategy for the circle game.
- Find the last two digits of 99^99.
- Figure out the logic behind a new game: Start with 2 each player takes turns adding some positive number less than the present number and replacing the existing number with the sum. The first player to reach 200 wins.
- 03-08-11: Finish working with graphs.
- 03-01-11: Graphs II
- 02-15-11: Graphs I: Shoe laces and other puzzles involving graphs.
- 02-08-11: Binary Numbers II: More puzzles featuring binary numbers and a solution to the game of nim.
- 02-01-11: Binary Numbers I: Puzzles featuring binary numbers.
- 01-25-11: Number Bases and Exploding Dots and Number Bases Worksheet: An introduction to number bases.
- 01-18-11: Bring your own puzzle (BYOP) day.
- 01-04-11: Nim II
- 12-14-10: Nim I: Another more complicated game to figure out.
- 12-07-10: Pigeon Hole Principle: A very simple, but powerful deductive principle.
- 11-09-10: Logic III: Last of the logic puzzles.
- 11-02-10: Logic II: More interesting logic puzzles.
- 10-26-10: Logic I: Some interesting logic puzzles.
- 10-19-10: Pico, Fermi, Bagel: The logic behind a game.
- 10-05-10: Math Challenge had no worksheet, but the problems were:
- How many fourth graders can crowd into Mr Schultz's classroom?
- How many fourth graders can pile into Mr Schultz's room?
- What is the volume of Mr Schultz's room?
- How many decks of cards can fit into Mr Schultz's room?
- Our first meeting will be Tuesday, October 5th.
Archives of old materials