Moody’s Mega Math Challenge was held Feb. 28 from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. It’s a mathematical modeling contest for High School juniors and seniors. Kayla Leaman is a senior who participated in the math competition for the second time.

“The math competition is a 14 hour challenge where we are given a problem, and we have to use math modeling to solve it. We then write a fairly lengthy paper that is under 20 pages. Last year we wrote 20 pages, and this year was about 12,” Leaman said.

Every year there is a different challenge that students will have to complete.

“This year was about environment and how sharing cars in different fashions fit with four major cities,” Leaman said.

Leaman’s love of different types of math was her reason for joining, “ [My friends and I] we decided to do it again because we had a great time,” Leaman said.  

According to the Moody’s Mega Math Challenge website, “The top six prize-winning teams receive scholarship awards ranging from $5,000 to $20,000, which are divided equally among team members and paid directly to the colleges or universities at which the winning students enroll. Semi-finalist and honorable mention winners (more than 80 awards) receive team prizes of $1,500 and $1,000, respectively.”

“We compete against teams of 3-5 high school students nationally,” Leaman said.

Leaman’s favorite part about the competition is spending time with people who also appreciate her love of mathematics and she enjoys having great conversations about the practicality of mathematics.

“My least favorite part would probably be how tired I am by the end, but I really think it is worth it,” Leaman said.

Several skill sets are important to the challenge but Leaman thinks the most important skill set is the ability to be able to think critically about a problem and pull concepts from different areas of math to make the model.

“The hardest part of it is writing coherently in paragraphs about what we did. It is much easier for me to explain to someone in front of me,” Leaman said.

Overall Leaman appreciates the way it stretches her to think mathematically and practically solve the problem revealing for her many practical applications.