On Thursday April 24, ten 5th Grade students from Triton Elementary School competed in the regional Math Masters Competition in Austin. This year’s competition had 100 participants in all! You might be wondering what a Math Master does.
Math Masters is a regional competition where students compete in 3 different areas: Fact drill, individual problem solving, and team problem solving. The fact drill has 75 problems that students have 5 minutes to complete. The facts may start out easy, but they soon become more difficult by using the order of operations! In the individual problem solving competition, students solve 8 problems in 10 minutes. But, that’s just one round! Competitors have 4 rounds total to complete! In the final area, teams of 5 students each solve 10 problems in 15 minutes. There are also 3 rounds in that part of the competition. In order to be successful in problem solving, students need to have great understanding in the many areas of math including geometry, algebra, data analysis, and number sense.
Students have been practicing over the last 3 months, meeting once a week. There were many great discussions on the different ways a problem can be solved. The two teams from Triton also had to learn the most effective way to work together as a team! The time went fast!!!
Our Triton students did VERY well this year, especially in the Fact Drill Category. 5 were recognized with awards for placing in the top 10 out of 100 students!!!
Fact Drill:
2nd Place: Max Becker
3rd Place: Bentley Kunz
5th Place: Bryce Blanchard
8th Place: Zander Van Zuilen
9th Place: Izzy Axt
Both of the Triton Teams placed within the top 10, with 6th and 10th place out of 21 teams! Way to go 5th Graders!!
