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What's New at BEAM?
How do strong mathematicians think? How do they work? That's the goal of our problem solving classes at BEAM!
At the beginning of the program, students got to choose between Solving Big Problems and Math Team Strategies. In Math Team Strategies, the goal is to prepare for math competitions, like MATHCOUNTS, the AMC 8, or Purple Comet. Math competitions and math teams praise clever, efficient thinking, finding solutions and shortcuts that save time and still make mathematical sense!
In class, students were working on problems like the following one, combining their knowledge of geometry and number theory:
And here are the students hard at work, trying to break the problem down and explain their solution.
We take birthdays seriously at BEAM! On Saturday, we wished a happy 13th birthday to Alex and celebrated with his favorite flavor -- red velvet whoopie pies! Happy birthday, Alex!
On Sunday, the BEAMers went hiking at North Point, during which they marveled at the beautiful scenery and the wonders of nature. A picnic took place as well, volleyball, Frisbee, and math conversations happening on the sidelines. On Monday, the BEAMers went to Splash Down Beach, a water park with exciting rides. The BEAMers from Bard got to meet the BEAMers from Vassar. Both sites had a fun-and-sun-filled day. Time for week two!
It was a BEAMing Saturday at Bard, and this meant a lot of things for the BEAMers:
1) The first academic week was over, and the students got to choose new classes for the upcoming week.
2) The solutions to the challenge problems were formally presented in front of the entire BEAM group by the students who solved them. Jacob, one of the BEAMers, solved the third challenge problem (meaning the BEAMers get a pizza party as a prize), and presented the solution to it alongside the other students who solved the other two: Milani, Deja, and Miriam.
3) BEAM was visited by a guest speaker: the founder of BEAM, Daniel Zaharopol.
4) It was relay day! Students competed in teams to complete competition-style math problems.
5) After solving challenge problems one and two, the students got to reap their prize in the evening: movie night with popcorn!
What a way to end the first week of class. The field trips awaited!
"I felt happy and excited that I was able to solve it. I learned that things can be easier if you take it slowly and look at all the possibilities instead of limiting the possibilities that you're going to choose from," Mariam revealed, having solved the second challenge problem alongside Milani, who solved the first challenge problem as well.
Since the BEAMers solved the second challenge problem before Friday evening, as a prize, they will get popcorn with their movie night. The movie to be screened is "Ride Along 2".
The second challenge problem was: Take the product of ninety-four 9's and ninety-four 4's, and find out the sum of the digits of this number.
For the lounge every year, we design staff and student faceboards, to help people keep track of all the members of the BEAM staff. Meet the BEAM 2016 Vassar staff:
And here are the BEAM 2016 Vassar students!
We are going to have a great summer!