Pi Day Songs

Challenge met

Students had fun participating in math challenges at the SUNY Fredonia 11th Annual High School Mathematics and Science Challenge.

This year, more than 225 students from 14 different schools as far away as Jasper-Troupburg and as close as Fredonia participated. Eleven years ago, the program began with two schools and 20 students. Today, it has grown so large it had to be capped at 14 schools.

For the past four years, the challenge has been subject to a theme. This year's was heroes and villains.

Coordinator Dr. Keary Howard of Fredonia's Mathematical Sciences Depart-ment said that as long as there has been a theme, students have been dressing up.

This year, students dressed as the Incredibles, Batman, Superman, the Power Puff Girls and X-men. However, some also dressed less as super heroes and more as everyday heroes like police, firefighters and military personnel.

The challenges started at 9 a.m. and continued on until noon. Events were held in Steele Hall and teams of students rotated between several games.

Graduate students in the Math program at SUNY Fredonia plan the theme, the events and design the T-shirts. Howard said many undergraduates and graduate students participate because they participated in the past as high school students.

"It helps us prepare for when we get jobs we will know what activities make math fun for students," Fredonia grad student Kristi Jo Bockhahn said.

The first event was MacGyver or MacGruber?, which asked students to use engineering skills to make a vehicle out of what was in their MacGyver packs.

The next, called Hero's Formula, utilized knowledge of geometry.

The Be Like the Man in Black: Walk the Line challenge tested students' precision in recreating graphs.

Spidey Says: Sound the Alarm asked students to be creative and use rudimentary materials to play a portion of the Spiderman theme song.

The final math challenge was Base 'e'vil SMADNESS. It called on students' problem-solving skills and team work. Cookie Calculus and Rock 'Platonic' Solid were also held.

Undergraduate Chelsea Caruso said participating in the program in high school showed how passionate the Fredonia mathematics faculty is and made it seem like this was something she could do.

Howard said that in addition to a theme, a dance competition has been incorporated into the program over time.

This year, students competed in dance off and head banging competitions for bragging rights and trophies.

Hear that? It's Pi Day! | Music | Great Job, Internet! | The A.V. Club

[Sing to the tune of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” ] It’s Pi Day, Pi Day, gonna do some math on Pi Day…

Actually, Pi Day—or 3/14 for those of you who flunked pre-algebra—is probably deserving of a better song than that. “What Pi Sounds Like” may not be as catchy, but it’s much prettier, and more mathematically sound to boot. Musician Michael John Blake interpreted the number pi to 31 decimal places by assigning notes and chords to each number and playing them on a variety of instruments.

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