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• Highlights of Western Summer Math Camp 2023

Highlights of Western Summer Math Camp 2023

In Summer 2023, we offered three math camps for students in grades nine, ten, and eleven/twelve, which were

 held from July 17 to August 2. A total of sixty-nine students from different grades attended three camps this summer. The camps ran for three days, and students had 2-3 math talks each day, puzzle solving in teams, and contest writing each day. Each camp also had a team activity that ran for three days and each team had to complete a task by the third day.

• γ-Camp (Gamma Camp for grade nine students) July 17-19, 2023.
• θ-Camp (Theta Camp for grade ten students) July 24-26, 2023.
• ζ-Camp (Zeta Camp for grade eleven and twelve students) July 31-August 2, 2023.

 

Math Talks

In total 24 talks were delivered by department members, including faculty members, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students. Here the list of speakers and the title of their talk(s). 

Speaker	Talk title
Geoff Wild	Talk 1: How to Be a Mathematical Investment Banker Talk 2: Mathematical Constants
Michael Francis	Some Things Never Change: Solving Problems Using Invariants
Allen O'Hara	Talk 1: Four of a Kind Talk 2: Angels/Kings/Demons Chessboard Problem Talk 3:  How to Protect Your Art Exhibit
Mohabat Tarkeshian	Game Theory and Winning Strategies
Phillip Braun	Hex and the Existence of a Winning Strategy
Jarl Taxerås Flaten	Cooperation and Nash Equilibria
Mohsen Mollahajiaghaei	Talk1: Connect the Dots Talk 2: The Four Colour Theorem
Luuk Verhoeven	Talk 1: The Oldest Calculator: Compass and Straightedge Talk 2: A Complex and Irrational History of Math
Asghar Ghorbanpour	How Does Google Rank Pages?
Gord Sinnamon	A Do-It-Yourself Fractal
Matthias Franz	Modular Arithmetic
Nathan Pagliaroli	The Algebra of Complex Numbers
Curtis Wilson	Modular Arithmetic
Peter O’Hara	Some Classic Problems
James Uren	Encounters with chance: Surprising Results from Introductory Probability
Taylor Brysiewicz	Talk 1: Polytopes Talk 2: Conics
Thomas Griffiths	Konigsberg Bridge and Euler
David Jeffrey	Calculating Area

 

Week challenges

Each day wrapped up by a team activity. The teams are chosen at the beginning of the camp, and they worked on the activity throughout the camp. The activities were different for each camp:

• Gamma camp was about cryptography.

• Theta Camp’s week challenge was about using similarity of triangle.

• Zeta Camp’s Challenge was about bitcoin. 

 

The Winners

The students with the highest total scores of all three competitions have received prizes.

 

 

Organizing team members, Speakers and Volunteers

The summer camp represents a collaborative effort from various team members. 

• Math Camp Coordinator/Organizer: Dr. Asghar Ghorbanpour
• Math Camp Assistant Coordinator: Mohabat Tarkeshian

The Math Camp is primarily run by volunteers, in particular, all the talks in the camp (total of 24 talks) were given by different members of the department. We had total of 34 volunteers involved in this year’s camp. 

	γ-Camp	θ-Camp	ζ-Camp
Contest Committee	Mahan Moazzeni Bita Godsi	Mohabat Terkeshian	Alan Flatres Shubhankar
Content Committee	Shubhankar Milad Fakhri	Nathan Pagliaroli Xiangyuan Liang	Adrian Chitan Curtis Wilson
Camp Facilitators	Madelyn Backer  Milad Fakhri	Xiangyuan Liang Manuel Romero	Zahra Shafiei Sepideh Bahrami
Outreach Committee	Curtis Wilson, Manuel Romero, Liang-Chen Chien, and Parsa Zarei
Other	Akram Kangouri (Zeta Camp food related tasks)

Other than volunteers, we have received substantial help from staff members of our department. Audrey Kager assisted us on almost any aspects that we required office support and Aron Downes were very helpful in any IT related matters. We are also grateful for the help and support that we received from Jane Bai and Stephanie L. Lim.