Dear ,
Welcome to the Upstate NY ARML Team newsletter! My goal is to bring a team from Upstate New York to ARML in 2020. With your help, we can prepare Upstate New York State's most motivated and curious math students for stimulating mathematical challenges, build the team, and get them to ARML at the end of May. Thanks for being part of this effort.
– Japheth Wood
What is ARML?
The American Regions Math League is an annual math competition that takes place on the first Saturday after Memorial Day. Teams of fifteen students (in grades 12 and below) compete in this day-long, multi-format event. There are four ARML sites across the USA, the closest being at Penn State. Considered by many as the "World Series of Math Competitions", ARML offers motivated students excellent exposure to math enrichment topics like Algebra, Combinatorics, Geometry and Number Theory, and camaraderie with math-loving peers across the region.
There has not been an Upstate NY Math Team at ARML for about five years, so re-establishing this tradition will re-invigorate the math education of Upstate NY students who are curious about math and in search of deeper mathematical challenges.
Preparing for ARML
Math contests like ARML are a nice motivation to learn interesting and elegant mathematics, to hone computational skills, and to develop problem solving and reasoning abilities. We recommend practicing with old contests, in either a timed or non-timed context, with your team or on your own. Discuss the problems! Get into the habit of writing up your solutions, and reading others'. You can also learn math and prepare for ARML by reading math books, participating in math circles, and in math summer programs. Try our math problems of the month!
Problems of the Month - November
Prepared by Matthew Babbitt
Each month we offer a set of problems to help you prepare for ARML. We'll send you the solutions in the next month's newsletter.
Whether you solve these with your team, on your own, or with some friends, we hope you enjoy the challenge and learn some unexpected mathematics in the process.
NOVEMBER 2019 PRACTICE PROBLEMS
Please let us know how you are using these problems to prepare yourself or your team for ARML. We'd love to share your ideas around Upstate NY!
Upcoming Contests
To learn what ARML is like, and to be prepared, we recommend looking into other contests in the meantime. Here's a short list of upcoming math contest opportunities nearby. Some are free, but most charge a reasonable fee or request a donation.
Purple Comet (Online). This team-based competition can be done wherever and whenever teams meet, and is held April 21–30, 2020.
TrinMaC (Travel). A very new competition held at the Trinity School in New York City, which is one of the closer travel competitions for people in the eastern half of New York. Contest date: November 23, 2019. Register by November 9th.
CMIMC (Travel). Held in Pittsburgh PA at Carnegie Mellon University, this competition seems to be a bit closer for those on the western side of New York. Contest date: February 1, 2020.
HMMT Online Tournament. This is an unofficial version of the HMMT February tournament, and so if students are unable to participate at the in-place event, they can simulate the rounds at home (or with their team).
SBIMC. The South Brooklyn Invitational Math Competition is a gentle ARML-style contest.
NYSML coaches have been invited to host/participate in NYSMLSeasonal competitions. These local contests include the NYSMLFall (November 16, 2019–December 8, 2019) and the NYSMLWinter (February 24, 2020–March 8, 2020) events. If you know of a NYSMLSeasonal event, please let us spread the word!