Inaugural Middle School Math Tournament at Stone Hill Middle School

250 students. 50 teams. 4 rounds. 1 tournament. On the morning of April 2nd, 2016, students from all over Loudoun County gathered bright and early in the Stone Hill Middle School cafeteria for the love of Math. They were participating in the Inaugural Middle School Math Tournament, hosted by the Stone Hill Middle School Math Department. Mrs. Mariyana Yaneva, the department chair, the driving force behind this event, smiled proudly as these young Math enthusiasts took their places in the cafeteria.

It all began with an individual round, in which the students had 30 minutes to solve 10 challenging math problems. 32 students got perfect scores in this round. Next was the team round. Students got into their 5 person teams, and were allotted 20 minutes to complete 10 math problems- there were 4 perfect team scores. The highest scoring students for each grade from the individual round moved on to the playoff round, with any ties resolved in a tiebreaker round. In the playoff round, which was “Math Madness” style complete with a bracket, math problems were projected on a screen and the students competed within their grades to solve the problems as quickly as possible- all in front of an audience. Just to give you a sense of the excitement, one of the 7th grade first place playoff questions – “What part of 17 hours is 17 seconds? Express your answer as a common fraction.” was answered within 5 seconds of the question being read! These young minds were sharp as a tack and fast as lightning! Later, during the awards ceremony. Stone Hill principal and Tournament Director Ms. Jodi Day remarked on how awe-struck she was watching the students answer the questions in the time that it took her and others in the audience to read the problems.

In the end, several awards were given out (see complete list below). Team awards were given for the first through sixth place teams. Teams consisting of only sixth graders were recognized separately with first and second place awards. Individual awards were given to the 1st through 4th place students from the playoff rounds for each grade. A Stingray Teamwork Award was given to the team that was observed to have the best team dynamic, spirit, and cooperation. The student who designed the official tournament t-shirt was recognized with a T-Shirt Design award.

The Math Tournament concluded a success- it brought young minds together and allowed them to exhibit their creative math problem solving and critical thinking skills. Most importantly, the students had a wonderful time and are excited to participate again next year!

Individual Winners

6th Grade -

1st Place - Raahi Chada

2nd Place - Aakash Mehta

3rd Place - Rashmith Repala

4th Place - Abhinav Goel

7th Grade -

1st Place - Viraj Boreda

2nd Place - Ananth Ramani

3rd Place - Rhea Vidyababu

4th Place - Udbhav Muthakana

8th Grade -

1st Place - Omkar Bhalerao

2nd Place - Aneesh Boreda

3rd Place - Eshaan Rawat

4th Place - Yash Arora

Stingray Team Award –

Team: Math Patriots

Kiley Taylor

Elan Zambrano

Kelsey Oertly

Arya Kuchipudi

Ananya Rajkumar

6th Grade Team Awards

1st Place Team: Challengers

Raahi Chada

Aniket Chityala

Nihal Boina

Nikhil Kalidasu

Shailee Patel

2nd Place Team: Avengers

Kunal Saxena

Atin Pothiraj

Sean Ting

Rhisab Shetty

Saideep Katragadda

Overall Team Awards

1st Place Team: Fast and Curious

Sonika Vuyyuru

Ipsita Das

Rishika Surineni

Shakti Kasirajan

Khushi Chawla

1st Place Team: Ti-Nspires

Aneesh Boreda

Viraj Boreda

Saketh Gabbita

Ayush Hariharan

Rohan Cherukuri

3rd Place Team: Mathsterminds

Jayanth Peetla

Udbhav Muthakana

Hrishik Chada

Ananth Ramani

Yash Arora

4th Place Team: MathMatters

Eshaan Rawat

Anish Kalyan

Vishnu Paranganat

Dhruv Pandya

Vivek Poluru

5th Place Team: Mathminds

Ritvik Jayakumar

Ronith Ranjan

Ikhlaas Bhat

Vinay Bhaip

Vishnu Maddipatla

6th Place Team: Seneca Ridge Pi-Five

Rishubh Kaushal

Sanchita Pandey

Ayumi Tsuhaki

Omkar Bhalerao

Roshan Baddeliyange

T-shirt design award

Petya Yaneva, Dominion High School