Natick's MathWorks Named National Math Modeling Challenge Sponsor

NATICK, MA—Thanks to Natick's MathWorks, a developer of mathematical computing software, the country's prestigious national high school math modeling competition will continue on.

Competition organizer Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) announced thie week that Massachusetts-based MathWorks as title sponsor of the newly-named MathWorks Math Modeling (M3) Challenge, which takes place March 2-5 in 2018.

The M3 Challenge is an Internet-based contest now in its 13th year and has drawn the participation of more than 37,000 students (one third female), 4,000 high schools, 5,000 teachers and 400 Ph.D.-level judges and has awarded more than $1.2 million in scholarships since its launch in 2006, according to the announcement.

The Moody’s Foundation ended its 12-year sponsorship of the competition, previously known as Moody’s Mega Math Challenge, after the 2017 contest. MathWorks has supported the Challenge for the last four years by offering free, optional software licenses to participating students, coming on as the primary sponsor this year.

“SIAM’s math modeling challenge helps students develop and sustain an interest in computational thinking, helping them consider future careers as scientists and engineers,” said Lauren Tabolinsky, academic program manager, MathWorks, in a statement. “We see this opportunity to support SIAM as another step in our efforts to motivate and inspire young students to consider and pursue STEM careers.”

Registration for MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge is free and open from December 2017 through Feb. 23, 2018. During Challenge weekend—March 2-5, 2018—an open-ended problem will be revealed to high school teams and they can spend up to 14 consecutive hours using the math modeling process to represent, analyze, make predictions and otherwise provide insight into that real-world problem’s questions.

Challenge day culminates with the online submission of each team’s final solution paper. All high school juniors and seniors seeking a pinnacle high school experience and the chance to win a share of $100,000 in scholarships are encouraged to participate.

Learn more and register your team before Feb. 23, 2018.

Photos and information via MathWorks