(Minnesota) March 11th, 2022 — The first Minnesota MATHCOUNTS State Competition in three years will begin Friday, March 11. The lobby at the Crowne Plaza West in Plymouth will come to life when more than 300 middle school mathletes, parents, coaches and volunteers head to the registration desks.
Minnesota MATHCOUNTS’ parent organization, the Minnesota Society of Professional Engineers, will sponsor first-night engineering activities. In one activity teams of four will work together to construct and race ‘brush bots’ (think robotic toothbrush heads). May the best bot win!
Small groups will also compete in Friday evening Count Down Rounds. Speed, skill and the ability to shout out the correct answer to a question are all important in a Count Down Round. a question def to answer to get the correct answer for each question in the countdown round. Adding excitement– team members will wield noisemakers designed to up the energy –and confuse an opponent or two. Saturday will open with high-stakes events and close with the team competition. Top mathletes and teams will be announced Saturday, with the four top-scoring individuals advancing to the national MATHCOUNTS Competition in May.
Here is a sample question from a 2021 Chapter Competition:
What is the arithmetic mean of the first ten positive perfect squares? Express your answer as a decimal to the nearest tenth. In the various competions making up the State Competition, mathletes will be tackling more than 100 problems similar to the sample questions. And they will not be allowed ot use calculators during parts of the competition.
