A-Z/Search | Calendar | Directory | News | Help | UCCS Home

Colorado Mathematical Olympiad Reaches A Quarter Century!

The XXV Annual Colorado Mathematical Olympiad (CMO-2008) took place on April 18, 2008 . It brought together some 400 middle and high school students from all over Colorado: Aspen, Aurora, Bailey, Boulder, Branson, Calhan, Canon City, Colorado Springs, Dacono, Denver, Ellicott, Englewood, Falcon, Fort Collins, Fort Lupton, Littleton, Longmont, Loveland, Monument, Parker, Pueblo, Rangely, Security, U.S. Air Force Academy, Woodland Park. We hosted participants from Hudson , Ohio , and Los Altos , California . We also had guest participants from the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science, Mobile , Alabama , who earned their trip to our Olympiad by winning their local mathematics competition.

The Olympians were offered five problems and four hours to solve them and present complete essay-type solutions.

The judges awarded First prize to Marshall Carpenter, a senior from Fairview High School of Boulder . He received a gold medal of the Olympiad, a $1,000 scholarship to be used at any certified American university or four-year college, a $1,000 UCCS Chancellor's Scholarship for CMO Medalists, CASIO or Texas Instruments Graphing Calculator, CASIO Watch, Wolfram Research's Mathematica 5.2 (hard copy) and the new, not yet released Mathematica for Students 6.0 (download) software, Wolfram Research's Crystal Star Necklace, and A. Soifer's books Colorado Mathematical Olympiad: The First Ten Years and Further Explorations and Geometric Etudes in Combinatorial Mathematics (the latter is a joint book with V. G. Boltyanski).

 

Second prize was awarded to Daniel Pascua, a senior from Liberty High School . He received a silver medal of the Olympiad, a $1000 scholarship to be used at any certified American university or four-year college, a $1,000 UCCS Chancellor's Scholarship for CMO Medalists, CASIO or Texas Instruments Graphing Calculator, CASIO Watch, Wolfram Research's Mathematica 5.2 (hard copy) and the new, not yet released Mathematica for Students 6.0 (download) software, Wolfram Research's Crystal Star Necklace, and the books Colorado Mathematical Olympiad: The First Ten Years and Further Explorations and Geometric Etudes in Combinatorial Mathematics .

 

Third prize was presented to Ben Alpert, a Freshman from Fairview High School and Ryan Beethe, a Sophomore from Poudre High School . They each received a bronze medal of the Olympiad, a $250 scholarship to be used at any certified American university or four-year college, a $1,000 UCCS Chancellor's Scholarship for CMO Medalists, CASIO or Texas Instruments Graphing Calculator, CASIO Watch, Wolfram Research's Mathematica 5.2 (hard copy) and the new, not yet released Mathematica for Students 6.0 (download) software, Wolfram Research's Crystal Star Necklace, and the books Colorado Mathematical Olympiad: The First Ten Years and Further Explorations and Geometric Etudes in Combinatorial Mathematics .

 

Fourth prize was presented to: Samuel Meyer , a Senior from Cheyenne Mt. High School; Alexander Black, an eighth grader from Summit Middle Charter School ; Amber Verser , a Junior from Thompson Valley High School; Minh Ly, a Senior from Doherty High School ; and Chris Pak, a Senior from Air Academy High School. They will each receive a Casio Watch, Casio or Texas Instruments Graphing Calculator, Wolfram Crystal Star Keyholder, A. Soifer's Colorado Mathematical Olympiad book, and Wolfram Research's Mathematica for Students 6.0 (download) software.

 

 
WHAT IS COLORADO MATH OLYMPIAD?

     There are many types of mathematical competitions throughout the world. Some expect participants to merely state answers, others are multiple choice competitions. Some competitions are oral, and completed in a matter of a couple of hours. Others go on for a week or weeks. Over the past 100 years throughout the world the word "Olympiad " came to mean the particular type of competition where complete essays are expected for every problem and an adequate time is offered to participants.
The First Colorado Springs Mathematical Olympiad took place on April 27, 1984. The COLORADO MATHEMATICAL OLYMPIAD is the largest essay-type mathematical competition in the United States, with 600 to 1,000 participants competing annually for prizes, such as: medals, computer software, scholarships, calculators, books, memorabilia, etc. All prizes are made possible by our various sponsors (see sponsor list)

Participants are offered 5 problems and given 4 hours to solve them. Problems of great difficulty, and arranged them from the easiest problem to the most difficult problem. This is an individual competition, and all work must be shown for credit. Our Olympiad is genuinely and principally an essay-type competition. We generously reward originally and creativity. Our goal is to allow every student the opportunity to participate in the Olympiad. We offer only individual competition and put no restrictions on the number of participants from a school. Colorado Springs District 11 distributes an information letter to all school districts twice a year. The information sheet includes dates, times, protocol and instructions for participation.
We try to bring the Olympiad problems closer to "real" mathematics: many problems require construction of examples (rather than just analytical reasoning), some comprised a sequence of problems increasing in difficulty, leading to generalizations, and deeper results. These problems are structured to demonstrate ways in which mathematical research worked.

We use the least standard, the most interesting, decisively unknown to participants, problems. We do not have a large enough organization to consider an alternative of offering the competition separately for every grade. Thus, we offer the same problems to everyone who comes, from junior high school students to seniors. This approach made finding of acceptable problems much more difficult, but positively improved the quality of the problems. We create problems that require, for their solutions, a minimal amount of knowledge and a great deal of creativity, originality, and analytical thinking. To review problems from past Olympiads, see links below. Each solution is evaluated by at least two judges independently, and all disagreements are discussed by many, if not all, 12 to 21 judges. This enjoyable but hard job takes the judges usually a weekend. At the end we learn the names of students to whom we awarded prizes (judges evaluate essays without knowing the names of their authors).

A week later the AWARDS CEREMONY offers a review of solutions, a lecture on mathematics, comments by dignitaries and legislators, presentation of awards, and a reception. Thus, we hope that the Award Ceremony would be of great interest to all participants, their parents, and teachers.

Mark your calendars for the

Twenty-sixth Colorado Mathematical Olympiad, to be held

April 17, 2009 with Award Presentation following on April 24, 2009.

Send Email to: Alexander Soifer at UCCS.edu


The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs is located at:

1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway, P.O. Box 7150
Colorado Springs, CO 80933-7150, USA