Auburn competes at UNL Math Day.
by Kevin Reiman
November 15, 2006
The 17th Annual UNL Math Day was held on Thursday, November
9 at the UNL city campus Union. Opening ceremonies began at
8:00 a.m. in the Lied Center for the Performing Arts with
the Welcome Address by Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Juan Franco. Math Day 1990 hosted 562 students for 68
Nebraska high schools. This year Math Day hosted 1347
students form 97 Nebraska high schools.
The Auburn Math Team finished 4th out of 22 Class B schools.
The purpose of Math Day is to promote the mathematical
sciences and UNL. It consists of two individual and two
team mathematics competitions, information about majors and
departments, career information and recreational
mathematical activities. All students start with a multiple
choice, preliminary exam called PROBE I (Problems Requiring
Original and Brilliant Effort). The top 3 females and males
receive awards. The top 50 students move on to take the now
famous essay exam called PROBE II. The top 10 on PROBE II
are awarded a total of $34,000 in 4-year scholarships to
UNL. The scholarships are generously supported by the Dean
H. and Floreen G. Eastman Memorial Fund for Mathematics, the
College of Engineering and UNL. The first team competition
is determined by averaging the top scores from each school
on PROBE I. The second is a double elimination tournament
pitting 3 member teams against each other (up to two
alternates per team allowed). The team competitions are
divided into smallest, small, medium, and large school
categories with trophies given to the top two teams in each.
All the questions assume only two years high school algebra
and one year geometry. However the answers to PROBE II
questions require the creativity and originality that we
expect from only the very best students.
