PSU hosts 47th Math Relays

  Wednesday, April 15, 2015 2:00 AM
  News

Pittsburg, KS

About 1,000 high school students from Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri put their math skills up against the best from schools large and small at PSU’s 47th annual Math Relays on Tuesday, April 14.

Tim Flood, chairman of the Department of Mathematics, said the sports analogy in the event’s title is a good one.

“Just like in an athletic competition, it’s good to go up against somebody from another school to see who really is the best,” Flood said.

He said students who participate in Math Relays take the event seriously and spend a considerable amount of time preparing for the competition.

“It pushes them,” Flood said.

Terry Ann Martin, a member of the PSU Math Department faculty, coordinates the event. She said the students compete in a wide range of events include graphing, algebraic equations and inequalities, analytic geometry, trigonometry, number theory, probability and statistics, and computational math.

The top 10 competitors in each of the contest's categories have their names listed in Yates Hall and the top three in each receive medals. The top performers are invited back to campus for Math Honor Day later in the year.