The Dos Pueblos High School Math Team won first and second place at the Mathematics Field Day, which was hosted at Westmont College on Feb. 7. This math competition has been held annually for 37 years, with teams from several schools coming out to compete. Dos Pueblos High School sent out their own team, composed of 10 students from DPHS’s Math Club, under supervision by their coach, Travis Bower.
The Mathematics Field Day consisted of a written exam where students had to work together to prove and solve questions; a college bowl, where they competed against teams from other schools in a test of speed to see who could solve short answer questions faster; and a chalk talk, where a single student selected from each team would give a 10 to 12 minute talk about a specific topic given to them ahead of time.
Nathaniel Van De Veire (12), a member of the team who took part in the college bowl portion of the competition, talked about his own feelings on getting to go to the math competition.
“It’s just cool to have [the Mathematics Field Day],” Van De Veire said. “It’s just a different way of interacting with math. And I like math and having this other, more competitive, but in a fun way, interaction with it.”
Joy Xie (12), the student who participated in the chalk talk on behalf of the math team, elaborated about her experience before the competition.
“I did my presentation on imaginary-based systems and how they relate to the dragon fractal,” Xie said. “That was a really cool experience. I got to research this cool topic for a couple of weeks, and then I made a presentation.”
While Xie would go on to win the chalk talk for DPHS, with the DPHS math team earning first place, the team has consistently placed second the past few times they’ve competed in the college bowl.
Luna Avolio (12) also talked about her own experiences from the Mathematics Field Day and her logic going into it.
“I just went into it hoping to have fun,” Avolio said. “We’ve done well in the past, so I thought we had a good shot.”
Overall, the DPHS Math Team won first in the chalk talk, the 9-10 written exam, and 9-10 college bowl, while also scoring second place in the 11-12 college bowl.
