Math can cause amazement and it did on Dec. 10 in the Tahoma School District when more than 80 people participated in the district’s first math competition.

Tahoma High math teacher Malinda Shirley said, “the excitement was intense!”

Competitors were students from Cedar River and Tahoma middle schools as well as Tahoma Junior High, Shirley added.

“The Tahoma High School math team began planning the event in September,” Shirley said. “Senior Mary Illback and junior Anthony Yun, both high school math team members, developed the competition structure as they assumed the role of co-chairmen. A unique part of the competition would be solving mathematical mazes.”

To tie in with the math maze concept, the theme “Math is Amazing” was chosen for the competition, with math team members Emily Burlison, Kaitlyn Dige, Caleb Eades, Brooklyn Leick, Kyla Marczewski, Amanda Peng, Niky Sarmah, Miranda Smith, and Malise Yun submitting questions to challenge the competitors mathematically.

A quick paced test with three questions given at a time, known as ciphering, began the competition as students worked through six rounds with Bradley Davis, a sixth grader, Claire McQuistar, who is in seventh grade, and Lauren Baek, an eighth grader, winning that portion of the event.

In each grade level students competed in topic tests, with sixth grader Jandrea Grobbelaar, Stephen Brantzeg who is in seventh grade, and eighth grader Madeleine Musard winning that section.

“This competition makes you think on your feet,” Musard said. “You have to make accurate decisions quickly.”

Initially Madeleine Musard was trying not to get out of her comfort zone, but once she did the competition became easier.

Puzzles, mazes, sudoku, math word searches and other tests of math skills were used for the final group with Daniel Prabahkar, who is in sixth grade, Daniel Laura, a seventh grader, and Joshua Novak, an eighth grade student, winning the Mazes and Puzzles category.

One competitor, Liam Niblock, who is in sixth grade at Cedar River, said the competition “ a great mixture of skills I had learned in class and things that I had never seen before. I learned a lot from trying my best.”

To wrap up the competition, parents, students, teachers and competitors filled up the lecture hall at Tahoma High for the countdown round which brought back the top 10 students in all three grades to take on an intense problem solving race. Students were eliminated one by one.

Josh Pennington won the countdown round by eliminating his competition one problem at a time.

“It was hard and I am a good guesser,” Pennington said.

Pennington won the biggest trophy of the evening, a Texas Instruments graphing calculator worth $150, which was donated by the manufacturer and the National Mu Alpha Theta organization.

The other students who competed in the countdown were: Alice Hinzmann, Mackenzie Soiseth, Sarah Atkinson, Jayaram Ravi , Sarina Sandhu, Megan Colley, Carissa Hibbert, Clayne Williams and Alicia Veach.

In addition, eight students won candy or coin jars by having the guess closest to the actual amount of items in the jar.

Zach Overhauser, a senior, designed the posters while Yun designed team shirts that were made by Tahoma High mom Heidi Yoast, who also owns a silk screen company in the area.

Carol Illback, another mother who works in real estate, donated the 19 trophies that were awarded to the students with C&B Awards of Covington providing the engraving free. Illback also donated candy jars for a guessing contest while Tom Brown, the team coach who is a retired engineer, donated a coin jar that Carley Nance won.

“I am really impressed with how much mathematical talent there is in the district,” Brown said.

Zach Browne, a junior, was the go-to guy who helped sophomore Lilly Loescher proctor while math club president Sean Messenger was in charge of data entry and Emily Burlison oversaw the scoring room, who explained, “without the help of the 25 Tahoma High School National Honor Society members in the scoring room, we could not have finished in a timely manner.”

Shirley said that the event concluded with the high school math team officers “encouraging students to enjoy mathematics and all the benefits that know math gives.”

To continue nurturing an interest in math in middle school and junior high students, anyone in sixth through eighth grade in the Tahoma School District is welcome to attend a free ‘Math is Amazing!’ workshop at least one Saturday a month from 10 a.m. to noon at Tahoma High in room 210. The workshops are taught by Tahoma High math team members and coaches.

Niblock attended the first workshop on Dec. 18 and said other students should go because it is “a way to experience new and exciting math and to be able to get ahead.”

Another student, Cameron Musard, said he had a great time and had fun at the workshop.

For more information, contact Shirley at mshirley@tahomasd.us.