2007 MATHCOUNTS OAHU CHAPTER COMPETITION
The 24th Oahu Chapter
Competition was held February 10, 2007 at the Kamehameha Schools Kalama Dining
Hall. It is considered a prelude to the annual Engineers Week, February 18-24.
Participating were 32 public and private schools, including 221 Mathletes who
competed in the Sprint, Target and Team Rounds.
MATHCOUNTS is a national math competition
for 6th, 7th and 8th graders. Students compete
individually in the Sprint Round solving 30 math problems in 40 minutes. Next
comes the Target Round where students try to solve eight problems within
approximately 30 minutes. The Team Round finishes the written portion of the
competition. In this round students work together solving 10 problems in 20
minutes.
The National MATHCOUNTS Competition will be
held Friday, May 11, 2007, at the Fort Worth Convention Center and Renaissance
Worthington Hotel, Fort Worth Texas. Lockheed Martin again is the main sponsor
for this national event. Last year they sponsored the event in Arlington, VA.
THE RESULTS
After the test sheets were scored and
tallied it was determined that the following teams, listed first through sixth
place, moves on to the State Competition on March 10, 2007: Iolani School (team
members: Teresa Ou, Sam Savitz, Dustin Shigaki, and Tracy Young; coaches: Li
Ann Wada and Annette Matsumoto); Washington Middle School (team members:
Richard Chang, Julia Chen, Jonathan Huang, and Naoki Shigeta; coaches: Cynthia
Ching and Lance Iida); Niu Valley Middle School (Victoria Kim, Amy Luo-Xu,
Eun-Young Park, and Wataru Sugahara; coach: Joel Mochida); Highlands
Intermediate School (Taylor Ishikawa, Jordan Komoda, Daron Lee, and Merrie
Oshiro; coaches: Mark Yamashita and Sandra Sato); Punahou School (William Chen,
Alda Lam, Nicholas Lee, and Sarah Loui; coach: Todd Chow Hoy); and Maryknoll
School (Rikuro Fukusato, Derek Lee, Alta Li, and Tiffany Ramos; coach Lynn
Mitchell). As you can see public and private schools were 50-50 showing the
quality of our public schools’ math programs.
The top ten individuals recognized as a
result of the Sprint and Target Rounds were: First Place: Richard Chang of
Washington Middle School; Second Place: Hao Chen of Iolani School; Third Place:
Naoki Shigeta of Washington Middle School; Fourth Place: Sam Savitz of Iolani
School; Fifth Place: Sarah Loui of Punahou School; Sixth Place: Adam Ching of
Iolani School; Seventh Place: Dustin Shigaki of Iolani School; Eighth Place:
Tracy Young of Iolani School; Ninth Place: Travis Le of Punahou School; and
Tenth Place: Jordan Komoda of Highlands Intermediate School.
The final competition of the event was the
Countdown Round where the top 12 scoring Mathletes competed in pairs against
each other. This is a fast-paced, oral competition where the pairs of Mathletes
compete against each other and the clock to solve problems, and calculators are
not permitted. Jordan Komoda of Highlands was outstanding moving from his tenth
place individuals ranking to take first place. Second place went to Sam Savitz
of Iolani.
The
Hawaii Society of Professional Engineers (HSPE) sponsors the Hawaii
competitions with significant support from Aloha Airlines, Hawaiian Electric
Company, inc., and Kamehameha Schools. The participating HSPE members include
Dr. Michael Chun, Queenie Komori, Ken Morikami, Barry Nakamoto, Lennie Okano,
Guy Pasco, Jeff Pearson, Scott Seu, Carolyn Witcher, and Nathan Yuen.
Besides the students, coaches, HSPE, and
the MATHCOUNTS Steering Committee, the competitions would not be possible
without proctors and scorers. We recognize the following organizations who
provide these volunteers for each competition: the American Society of Civil
Engineers (leader: Jennifer Chang), the American Society of Mechanical engineers
(leader: Ron Flegal), Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc. (leader: Ed Chang), the
U.S. Corp of Engineers (leader: Lou Muzzarini), SSFM International (leader:
Kevin Nakamoto), and the Society of Military Engineers or SAME (leader: Morgan
LaRue).