Adlai E Stevenson High School District 125 issued the following announcement on March 30.
For the fourth consecutive year, a group of Stevenson students has reached the finals of the annual MathWorks Modeling (M3) Challenge, and will compete for the $20,000 top prize. The M3 Challenge, sponsored by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, is designed to motivate students to study and pursue careers in applied math, computational science, and technical computing.
The team of Josh Tsai, Philena Liu, Brandon Lu, Sai Merneedi and Praneet Rathi is among six groups nationwide chosen as finalists among 760 entrants. Josh, a senior and captain of the team, reached the finals for the second consecutive year. Philena also is a senior, while Brandon, Sai and Praneet are juniors. By reaching the finals, they are guaranteed of winning at least $5,000 as a team.
Another group of SHS students, all seniors, reached the semifinals, which means they placed between seventh and 12th overall: Eric Gan (captain), Dylan Hu, Emily Lu, Radha Patel and Andrew Zhuang. Eric, Dylan, Radha and Andrew reached the second round last year. The semifinalists will split $1,500.
The M3 Challenge kicked off with a 14-hour brainstorming session during the weekend of Feb. 28-March 2. All 760 teams used mathematical expertise and research to evaluate data and build a solution to a problem posed by contest organizers. This year, teams were asked to create a model to predict what percentage of semi-trucks will be electric in the next few years and decades, determine the number and locations of charging stations along major U.S. trucking routes that are needed for an all-electric trucking industry, and to prioritize which routes should be developed with electric charging infrastructure first.
After two rounds of judging by 150 professional applied mathematicians over the next eight weeks, six finalist teams were selected to present their solutions to a panel of mathematical experts in New York City on April 27. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York City event has been canceled. Instead, the finalists’ solution papers submitted in early March will determine the final rankings, which will be announced on or before April 27.
Stevenson’s finalists used the Lotka-Volterra competition model, which is typically employed to look at competition among species, to examine diesel and electric truck usage. “Using the Lotka-Volterra competition model was an interesting choice to explore the type of competition between diesel and electric trucks for the delivery of products,” competition judges wrote. “The parameters in the L-V model are very well explained and the selection of values for the parameters is well explained and justified by available data. The weaknesses of the model are clearly acknowledged and reasonable estimates are made with explanation and desire to modify as additional information is obtained.”
Mathematics teacher Paul Kim coached Stevenson’s M3 Challenge participants. Stevenson won the M3 Challenge and $20,000 grand prize in 2017.
Original source can be found here.
Source: Adlai E Stevenson High School District 125
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