SCSPE sponsored the South Carolina MATHCOUNTS championship on March 19, 2016 at Bridgestone Aiken County Off Road Tire Plant in Trenton, SC. This year, 12 middle school teams and 12 individuals competed to select South Carolina’s State MATHCOUNTS team, who will represent the state at the national competition in May.
MATHCOUNTS is a competition program for 6th, 7th and 8th grade students and is sponsored by the South Carolina Society of Professional Engineers (SCSPE) and the National Society of Professional Engineers. The top four “mathletes” and the coach of the first place school team will travel to Washington DC, May 7 – 10, 2016.
R.C. Edwards Middle School of Central, SC was recognized as the state’s top MATHCOUNTS school team. Finishing second was Dutch Fork Middle School of Irmo, SC. The third, fourth, and fifth place teams were Sterling School of Greenville, SC and Dent Middle School of Columbia, SC respectively.
The competition consisted of three timed rounds of written math problems. In the first round, the Sprint Round, competitors answered thirty questions without the use of a calculator. The Target Round was comprised of eight problems in series of two. Calculators were allowed. In the final Team Round the school teams of four, together, solved ten problems.
The national team is comprised of the four individuals achieving the highest scores of the 60 participants. Receiving top individual honors in the written competition were 1st – Julia Zhu, Sterling School (Greenville), 2nd-Lauren Chen, Dutch Fork Middle School (Irmo), 3rd – John Wang, R.C. Edwards Middle School (Central), 4th – Jennifer Gao, R.C. Edwards Middle School (Central). These four mathletes will be competing against state teams at the national competition in Washington DC, and will be coached by Ms. Sheila Amberg of R.C.Edwards Middle School (Central) as her school took first place in the team competition.