Scott Wu of Baton Rouge, La. was named the winner of the 2011 Raytheon Mathcounts National Competition Friday in Washington D.C. He answered the following math problem to be crowned the national champion of this year’s Mathletes competition:
Question: It takes 180 digits to write down all of the two-digit positive integers. How many of these digits are odd?
Answer: 95 (digits)
Scott Wu was victorious in the intense, one-on-one Countdown Round in which the top 12 Mathletes competed for the title of this year’s Raytheon Mathcounts National Champion. Yang Liu of St. Louis, Mo., was awarded the second-place individual title with Shyam Narayanan of Overland Park, Kan., and Kevin Yang of Bellevue, Wash., advancing to the semi-finals. In the team competition, California captured the title of National Team Champions. Team members include Andrew He, of Cupertino, Calif.; Alex Hong, of Los Altos, Calif.; Celine Liang, of Saratoga, Calif.; Sean Shi, of Saratoga, Calif.; and coach Vandana Kadam, of San Jose, Calif. The Michigan team took second place, and the Texas team placed third.
As National Champion, Scott Wu won the $8,000 Donald G. Weinert Scholarship and a trip to U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala. Yang Liu won a $6,000 scholarship as Second-place Individual. Semi-finalists Shyam Narayanan and Kevin Yang each won a $4,000 scholarship. Shyam Narayanan also won an $8,000 scholarship as the Written Round Winner, and Scott Wu also won a $6,000 scholarship as Written Round Runner-up. Additionally, each member of the winning California team won a $2,000 scholarship and trips to space camp.
“I hope that the experience further inspires them to use math as a key to unlocking the doors to rewarding careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” said William H. Swanson, Raytheon Chairman and CEO and 2011 Mathcounts honorary chairman.
Also announced during the Countdown Round was the launch of new program from Mathcounts: Reel Math Challenge. Reel Math Challenge is an innovative program involving teams of students using technology to create videos about math problems and associated concepts. Mathcounts hopes to use the new program to continue to excite students about math while allowing them to hone their creativity and communication skills.
Student representatives from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands and the Department of Defense and State Department schools worldwide participated in the 2011 Raytheon MATHCOUNTS National Competition. To advance to the national competition, students had to not only place in the top four of their peers during their state competition in March, but they also had to advance through local and chapter-level competitions.
Mathcounts (www.mathcounts.org) is America’s only nationwide enrichment, club, and competition program that motivates and rewards middle school students for math achievement. It’s mission is to secure America’s global competitiveness, and inspires excellence, confidence and curiosity in U.S. middle school students through fun and challenging math programs.
Over the past 28 years millions of students have participated in Mathcounts programs and been exposed to Mathcounts problems in the classroom, resulting in the development of essential critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. More than 100,000 students in more than 6,000 schools register annually to compete in the Mathcounts Competition Program.
Raytheon’s MathMovesU program is committed to increasing middle school students’ interest in math and science education by engaging them in hands-on, interactive activities. The innovative programs of MathMovesU include Raytheon’s Sum of all Thrills experience at Innoventions at Epcot®, which showcases math in action as students design and experience their own thrill ride using math fundamentals; the “In the Numbers” game, a partnership with the New England Patriots on display at The Hall at Patriot Place presented by Raytheon; the company’s three-year sponsorship of the Mathcounts National Competition; and the MathMovesU scholarship and grant program providing more than $1 million in annual funding to students and teachers.
