Maths M3 Challenge Victory in New York for Watford Grammar School for Boys Team!

Five Year 13 students presented in the final of a prestigious international maths competition in the United States on Monday 29th April 2024. The competition, named the MathWorks Math Modelling Challenge (M3 Challenge), had over 650 papers submitted and only 9 teams were invited to present their project at Jane Street, a global quantitative trading firm in New York.

The team, Meyer L, Dominic D- J, Jakub S, Kshitij T and Neil N, were tasked with using mathematical modelling to help determine a long-term plan to address homelessness in the U.S. or U.K. The project went live on Friday 1st March and they had exactly 14 hours to complete and submit their report!

Of the 655 papers submitted to this year’s M3 Challenge, 128 (20%) advanced to the second round of judging, where 37 were selected for awards and recognition (6%). At this point, the team performed exceptionally well and received $1000 for their noteworthy submission. However, following in-depth discussion and scrutiny by PhD-level mathematicians, their paper was also considered for the Technical Computing Award for their outstanding use of programming to analyse, design and conceive a solution for the homelessness crisis!

Therefore, they were one of 9 teams that were invited to New York to present in the final to a judge panel of top mathematicians. The entire day was live streamed and can be found here. You can find their presentation at time 1:49:06 and the award ceremony at 6:1:05. The team delivered an outstanding presentation with great professionalism, thus receiving the Outstanding Communication of Results $500 prize as well as a $1000 prize for third place in the Technical Computing Final. In total, the boys will receive $2500 ($500 each) which will go towards their university education!

The trip wasn’t solely maths! We also had the opportunity to do a lot of sightseeing.

We took the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Island to view the Statue of Liberty and explore the National Immigration Museum. Moreover, we did a walking tour of NYC, sampling the famous New York bagel and Joe’s pizza on the walk as well as other foods (e.g. fried Oreos - very interesting). Other than the food, our favourite part of the trip was visiting SUMMIT One Vanderbilt, which is a multi-sensory art experience with 360-degree views of NYC, as well as enjoying a cosy meal at a Japanese restaurant featuring live jazz music!