Wayzata High Team Wins National 2013 Moody's Mega Math (M3) Challenge

Five Wayzata High School seniors have won the national 2013 Moody's Mega Math (M3) Challenge and will share the $20,000 grand prize, according to the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).

The WHS team was "selected from thousands of participants for coming up with the best mathematical solutions to the country's—and world's—growing plastic pollution and recycling crisis," SIAM said in an online announcement: 

Jenny Lai, Abram Sanderson, Amy Xiong, Lynn Zhang, and Roy Zhao were named Champions after presenting their findings at Moody's corporate headquarters in New York City yesterday. Five other finalist teams, ranked first runner up through sixth place, also presented their solutions at the event.

The Wayzata High School team's formula for success included stellar mathematical and research sensibilities, a broad understanding of plastic waste's environmental and economic implications, and an unshakable ability to work quickly--on paper and online.

"A big part of our success was our strong mathematical background, in addition to our writing background. We were able to use these skills to create effective math models in our solution paper," said Roy Zhao of the champion team.

"We were very focused on the details of what we were doing, and avoided making generalizations," added his teammate Lynn Zhang. "We worked hard to find specific bits of data to back up our assumptions."