Thursday, March 22, 2001

Story by Dan O'Brien, Stars and Stripes
Photos by Raymond T. Conway, Stars and Stripes

James Heyne, left, from Wiesbaden Middle School and Joshua Eklund from Sembach Middle School, both in Germany, watch the screen as they try to answer difficult math questions during the Countdown Round.

MAINZ-KASTEL, Germany — The muffled groans and nervous giggles from the audience seemed to indicate it was a real head-scratcher: "What is the largest of four consecutive multiples of 6 if their mean is 27?"

Brenden Best, an eighth-grader at Alconbury High School in England, scribbled quick calculations on the scratch paper in front him. Although he answered this question incorrectly, his gift for solving math problems earned him third place Wednesday at the DODDS-wide Mathcounts competition.

"I was nervous," he said afterward. "I was here last year, but I didn’t do very well. I was hopeful this time."

Miguel Abad, left, from SHAPE High School in Belgium and Alex Burns from London Central High School in the United Kingdom, ponder the answer to a tough math question during the Countdown Round. Burns took first place in the round, while Abad took first place overall in the competition.

Hope and hard work combined to give Brenden the opportunity to represent the Department of Defense Dependents Schools at the Mathcount finals in Washington, D.C., in May. He will be joined by three other students and the team’s two coaches.

The competition, in a third-floor room of the DODDS Conference Center, pitted 56 students from 14 schools in a daylong series of problems involving geometry, algebra, statistics and other disciplines of math.

The Sprint Round, which begins the competition, requires students to solve 30 questions in 40 minutes. That is followed by the Target Round, in which the "mathletes" get eight questions, two at a time, and have six minutes to solve each pair.

Brenden Best from Alconbury High School in the United Kingdom studies a question during the Countdown Round. Best finished third in the round.

Judges then tabulate answers and select the top 10 finalists. These students then compete in a Countdown Round, which pits the finalists in a series of one-on-one face-offs, with the winner advancing to face the next challenger until only one is left standing.

In the end, Miguel Abad, an eighth-grader at SHAPE High School in Belgium, took top honors. Placing his trophy on a table, he said, "I’m very excited. I thought I did badly on the exams."

Miguel originally was an alternate on the SHAPE team. He moved up to the official team when another student withdrew.

Alex Burns, an eighth-grader from London Central High School, placed second. He explained how he will prepare for the final. "I’m pretty much going to do a lot of math. It should be pretty fun," he said.

Completing the team will be Alice Hahn, who is in the eighth grade at Ramstein Middle School.

Joshua Eklund from Sembach Middle School in Germany jots down figures on scratch paper during the Countdown Round.

In addition to the individual winners, there was a team competition in which the members had to work together to solve 10 problems. Ramstein Middle School took the top spot for team competition. Its coaches, Fran Bedard and Helge Nelson, also will travel to Washington for the final.

Mathcounts is a nationwide math coaching and competition program for middle school and junior high students.

Jacqueline McKeon, state coordinator for the Mathcounts competition for DODDS schools in Europe, said all the students showed great skill at problem solving.

"I’m always impressed every year with the ability the kids have at this age," she said, adding that for the first time this year sixth-graders were allowed to compete.

By the way, the correct answer to the problem mentioned above is 36. Go figure.

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