Scott Wu of Baton Rouge, La., was named the winner of the 2011 Raytheon MATHCOUNTS National Competition last Friday at the Renaissance Washington, D.C. Downtown Hotel. This year's winning Mathlete® answered the following math problem to be crowned the national champion of this year's competition:
Question: It takes 180 digits to write down all of the two-digit positive integers. How many of these digits are odd? — And the answer is: 95 (digits)
The eighth-grader from Glasgow Middle School competed against 223 other middle school students in this prestigious competition, which engages the best and brightest in middle school mathematics in exciting competition. Scott Wu was victorious in the intense, one-on-one Countdown Round in which the top 12 Mathletes competed for the title of this year's Raytheon MATHCOUNTS National Champion. Yang Liu of St. Louis, Mo., was awarded the second-place individual title with Shyam Narayanan of Overland Park, Kan., and Kevin Yang of Bellevue, Wash., advancing to the semi-finals. In the team competition, California captured the title of National Team Champions. Team members include Andrew He, of Cupertino, Calif.; Alex Hong, of Los Altos, Calif.; Celine Liang, of Saratoga, Calif.; Sean Shi, of Saratoga, Calif.; and coach Vandana Kadam, of San Jose, Calif. The Michigan team took second place, and the Texas team placed third.
"I want to congratulate our 2011 MATHCOUNTS champions for all their hard work and dedication," said William H. Swanson, Raytheon Chairman and CEO and 2011 MATHCOUNTS honorary chairman. "I hope all of these impressive young students had a rewarding and memorable week, and that the experience further inspires them to use math as a key to unlocking the doors to rewarding careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics."
As National Champion, Scott Wu won the $8,000 Donald G. Weinert Scholarship and a trip to U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala. Yang Liu won a $6,000 scholarship as Second-place Individual. Semi-finalists Shyam Narayanan and Kevin Yang each won a $4,000 scholarship. Shyam Narayanan also won an $8,000 scholarship as the Written Round Winner, and Scott Wu also won a $6,000 scholarship as Written Round Runner-up. Additionally, each member of the winning California team won a $2,000 scholarship and trips to space camp. Also announced during the Countdown Round was the launch of new program from MATHCOUNTS: Reel Math Challenge. Reel Math Challenge is an innovative program involving teams of students using technology to create videos about math problems and associated concepts. MATHCOUNTS hopes to use the new program to continue to excite students about math while allowing them to hone their creativity and communication skills.