COMAP, the Consortium for Mathematics and its Application, recently announced the results of its 14th Annual International High School Mathematical Modeling Contest and North Springs Charter High School, the ONLY Georgia participant in this world-wide competition, had a record-setting 13 teams receive top honors.

Of the 435 teams competing, 266 were from high schools in the United States and 169 were from foreign countries; with 64% from China, followed by Hong Kong, Korea, and Finland. Of these, North Springs had one Regional Outstanding team, awarded to only 12% of teams, and ten teams earn Meritorious, the most awards in this category, of ANY high school in the competition!

According to Math Department chair and AP Calculus teacher, Scott Hetherington, “it’s a tremendous accomplishment, especially when you see the caliber of the competition. It’s the third time we’ve had a team receive Regional Outstanding and the first time to have 10 teams receive Meritorious.”

The contest challenges students to discover "unique and creative mathematical solutions to complex, open-ended, real-world problems"; working in teams of four over a 36 hour period. At North Springs a student must take AP Calculus to compete, but success in the competition does not depend entirely on the math. “A lot of students think it’s all about the math and obviously math modeling is a big part of it, but it’s really more about creative problem solving and being able to write a clear, concise summary of how the team approached the problem and how they sought to solve it,” said Hetherington.

The Regional Outstanding team of seniors April Blad, Annabelle Broyles, Court Granish, and Leighton Rowell used their individual strengths to collaborate on their solution. “It was definitely a team effort,” said Rowell, who plans to major in journalism. “April, who’s interested in premed, and Court, in engineering, did the majority of the math; Annabelle, who intends to major in art history, did the graphing, and I wrote the summary.”

“Our problem was to find a lost class ring and a jogger lost on a 5 mile run, in a park at night, using a pin light, and within two hours,” explained Broyles. “It was my first time competing in COMAP; I was surprised and pleased we got Regional Outstanding, considering that most of the majority of the Regional Outstanding teams were from China and Hong Kong.”

According to the contest results summary, “the abilities to recognize problems, formulate a mathematical model, use technology, and communicate and reflect on one's work are keys to success. Applying mathematics is a team sport!”. Congratulations to the North Springs COMAP teams.