About the Contest

This year's MCM / ICM is a four day (96-hour) competition held February 3rd-7th in 2005. Teams of three students receive a set of three real-world problems from their faculty advisors on 5pm Thursday and work more or less continuously in their headquarters somewhere on the Berkeley campus until 5pm Monday to come up with a solution to one of them.  This can involve developing new mathematics from scratch, coding simulations, scouring research articles, or even carrying out zany physical experiments, in order to write a mathematical paper describing a solution to the problem.  

The contest is less about how much math you know and more about how well you can work together as a team, learn new information on the fly, and analyze and communicate your ideas.  Winning teams are not those who are necessarily the best at mathematics but those who are able to produce an effective model and analyze its strengths and weaknesses well.  Winning teams usually have diverse skill sets and backgrounds among their members.

Industry experts and mathematics faculty review and rank the papers.  Last year 742 teams competed internationally and more compete each year.  Fewer than two dozen teams are designated "outstanding" and win fabulous prizes and recognition.  Last year, Berkeley's only team of 3 first-time competitors ranked in the top sixty teams in the world, so dedicated novices can do extremely well in this contest even if they have no prior experience.

Participating in this year's contest

First, make sure you’ll be around in February and can commit to the full four days of the competition.  Professors are usually pretty good about giving extensions for this contest.  

Next, check that you’ll be able to participate in the training.  The best way to train for the MCM is through practice.  There will be at least three weekend dry-runs of the contest between now and February; most likely two this semester and one next semester.  You should count on participating in AT MINIMUM one of these if you want to compete, and hopefully more, with your team.  Esteemed members of the UC Berkeley faculty will provide feedback on our performance.  Your performance in this contest will improve by an incredible amount.   You will become an expert on obscure subjects and learn to churn out a fifteen-page technical paper on a topic you’ve never heard of in four days.

This year we will also be coordinating general practices for all teams where we convey the fine art of mathematical modeling, writing mathematical papers, and winning the MCM.  Last year's team practiced about twice a week for two hours per meeting in addition to these dry runs. Individual teams will develop their own training schedules as they see fit.  A highly tentative schedule is attached below that gives you a vague outline of what practices might be like – we’ll see what works best.

We will be assembling seven teams of three out of all interested students.  Teams will be constructed so that teammates have complementary skills and backgrounds, and similar time commitments.  If you have your own preferences for teammates and want to form your own team, indicate that on the infosheet.  Note that all teammates must be enrolled at least part-time at the same institution.  Each team will also get to choose an individual faculty advisor.

Berkeley can field up to seven teams this year with 21 students total.  If necessary we will screen contestants based on a practice-run teams do sometime after the next meeting.  We may or may not have to do this depending on how much interest there is.

Who are "we"?

Anand is a senior studying physics and math; Ephrat is a junior and studies IEOR with a minor in Computer Science. Last year we started with no experience in this contest and almost won the MCM; this year we intend to win the top prize, and it's likely that other teams from Berkeley will perform similarly well if they can capitalize on the training we developed last semester.  We expect all Cal teams to place in the top ten percent, as we did, assuming they’re willing to put in the time necessary to train.

But why are we here, you might ask. It is important for us to get across our role in organizing this year's teams: since we trained so rigorously last year and were able to develop a solid training schedule and method for successful competition, we would like to serve as a resource for additional teams that would like to compete (that means you guys!). We will be posting all of our documentation from last year, as well as holding group sessions to go over the modeling process and help get teams on their feet. Over the course of the semester it is each team's responsibility to figure out their own training schedule, but teams are welcome and encouraged to follow ours. We are also available any time to meet with individual teams should you have any questions or problems. Also, we would like to encourage students to take a more active role in helping the group out; in other words, if you happen to be an expert in something you think teams will highly benefit from, we would love for you to consider holding a session of your own to give a lecture to those interested.  Please speak with Ephrat or Anand if you are interested in organizing something on your own.