To most teams, numbers are a way of keeping score against competitors, but for the math team, numbers are the competition.

This year’s math team knows its numbers.  It has placed third in almost all of their competitions, including meets at Churchill, Wootton and Walter Johnson.

The team of about 10 is captained by senior Kai Sandbrink and sponsored by engineering teacher Hong Wang, who is in her fourth year coaching the team.  Members alternate between practices and competitions every Wednesday against local schools Blair and Wootton in the Montgomery County Math League.  Competitions last about two hours and the season runs from September to February.

Members compete both as a team and individually.  During team competitions, everyone works together to solve five problems in 20 minutes, and when competing individually, members are given three 10-minutes sets of two questions.

“The group aspect makes it a bit more than just solving math problems,” Sandbrink said.

After the season, members are invited to American Regions Math League practices.  Mini-competitions are held during practices, and the top 75-90 members are invited to compete in a national ARML competition at Pennsylvania State University in June.

All students compete as part of one of five Montgomery County ARML teams, but only the top 15 students compete on the A-team, while the next 15 compete on the B-team. Previously, only top performers during the regular season were invited to attend ARML practices.

Members also compete in the annual University of Maryland High School Mathematics Competition and the American Mathematics Competition, which are held at Whitman in the fall and spring respectively and are open to all students.

Members also compete outside of the team.  Brian Jones (’11), co-captain of last year’s math team, competed in “Who Wants to be a Mathematician,” last spring, contending for a $2500 scholarship.  He also was a member of the A-team in the ARML last year.

Because students only have to be enrolled in Algebra II to compete, most sophomores, juniors and seniors are able to participate.  However, techniques learned in math class don’t generally apply to competition problems, partially due to the fact that calculators are rarely allowed.

“They need a lot more skills and sometimes you need to look at the problem in a different way,” Wang said.  “You usually don’t get the answer until you spend a few minutes manipulating the terms.”

Problems are also more informal. Last year’s UMD competition referenced the Cookie Monster, math party and a pun about Abe Lincoln splitting logs outside of his cabin.

The math team also forces students to look at math from a different angle than in their math classes.

“Math is not a set of memorized facts,” league commissioner Eric Walstein said.  “Math is a body of knowledge and needs to be understood in that way.”