By Gargoyle news staff
Posted Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007, The OG, news & student awards

UNI HIGH WON first place in the Champaign County Chapter MathCounts competition held Feb. 10 at Everitt Lab on the University of Illinois campus.

The team, consisting of eight subfreshmen, defeated students from nine other area schools.

Individually, Youyang Gu led Uni with a second-place finish overall.

The team consisted of Gu, Wynee Bao, Alex Gruebele, Kevin Li, Claire Liu, Revathi Maturi, Charlie Newman, and Lilli Pearson.

Newman placed third overall, followed by Li in fifth and Pearson in sixth.

Five members of the team will compete in the state contest March 3 at the Holiday Inn in Matteson: Gu, Li, Liu, Newman, and Pearson.

Last year's Uni team placed second in the local contest and 13th at state. Math teacher Gene Bild is faculty sponsor.

The Illinois branch of MathCounts is divided into 19 local chapters. As of January, 280 schools throughout the state were registered members.

MathCounts is a national mathematics coaching and competition program for middle school students. Illinois, which has one of the largest MathCounts programs in the country, won the 2004 national championship with the help of Uni student Alex Zhai, now a junior and the winner of a silver medal at the 2006 International Mathematical Olympiad.

Each MathCounts competition consists of:

— a sprint round (40 minutes for 30 questions, calculators not permitted);

— a target round (about 30 minutes; eight problems presented in four pairs, each set of problems requiring several steps, calculators allowed);

— a team round (20 minutes; 10 problems that team members work together to solve, calculators allowed);

— a countdown round (a fast-paced oral competition in which one representative from each team squares off against a competitor from another team and has 30 seconds to come up with a correct answer, calculators not permitted).

RELATED

— National organization: MathCounts

— Illinois organization: Illinois Society of Professional Engineers

— Contest overview: Competition components