Integration Bee marks 5^th year, growing steadily

By Rob Poodiack and Gerard LaVarnway

       On a snowy Thursday night in April, over 50 students were huddled into Cabot 085 to enjoy a night of friendly competition, either by joining the contest or by cheering on friends.

       It was all for the love of calculus.

       The fifth annual Integration Bee took place on April 12^th with 45 competitors.  Stuart Schutta, a sophomore Computer and Electrical Engineering major, was this year’s winner. Nataly Patino, an architecture freshman, took second prize.

The contest has grown steadily since its inception in 2003.

       “We had been looking for something to really cap off Mathematics Awareness Month,” says Robert Poodiack, Associate Professor of Mathematics.  He has helped organize the Integration Bee for five years.  “We’ve always had a great series of faculty, student, and visitor colloquia in April, but we wanted to provide a big bang.”

       An integral is a mathematical object that can be interpreted as an area or a generalization of area.  Computing the value of these objects is called integration.  Integrals, together with derivatives, are the fundamental objects of calculus.

       “I had read in a math journal about an Integration Bee being held at the University of Pittsburgh, and I thought, well this would be perfect.  We work very hard in the calculus classes to drill our students on how to compute lots of different integrals.  We could do this with a bee.  Plus it would just be fun.”

       The department held its first competition in April 2003 with 13 students.

       “We could tell already we were on to something,” says Poodiack.  “So we decided to start publicizing the contest each year as much as possible.”  Also, he says, the department began offering a variety of prizes from mathematical software, thanks to Wolfram Research, to Red Sox tickets and transportation from Milne Travel.  Prizes of T-shirts, calculators, and gift certificates to area restaurants have also helped draw students.

       “Our sponsors have helped us boost attendance every year since we began,” Poodiack says.  “We’re quite grateful to them.” This year’s attendance was the largest by far.

       The competition consists of two parts.  During the first section, contestants sit in the “hot seat” – a chair in front of a projector – and are given 3 minutes to work through an integral.  The contestant’s work is projected onto a big screen for all to see.

       “Just being in front of everyone can unnerve even the best students,” Poodiack says.  “You can hear students whispering encouragement or groaning based on what they see on the screen.”

       If a contestant gets stuck, they may call timeout and consult briefly with a “lifeline.”  A successful contestant moves on to the next round; an unsuccessful one is out of the competition.  If a contestant misses an integral, another one gets a shot at the same one for a minute and a half.  If that contestant misses, another one tries the same one for 45 seconds.

       “It’s not as bad as it sounds because while contestants are waiting, most of them are working on other people’s integrals to stay sharp, and they bring their work with them to the hot seat,” Poodiack says.

       Once the first round is over, a “lightning round” happens.  Only a certain number of fast integrators move on to the next round.  With every round, the field is cut in half until an eventual champion is crowned.

       “You might not think that a math competition could be suspenseful, but the tension toward the end … you can really feel it,” says Poodiack.  “The best part has always been that students who were eliminated earlier in the evening stick around to work on the integrals and support their friends.

       The credit for the Integration Bee’s success so far, he says, is based on the wide support from the mathematics faculty and majors, and from other schools on campus, especially the David Crawford School of Engineering.

       “Between our faculty and majors, we have a great support team for putting on this event every year.  We’re quite blessed with the reaction so far, and we hope to keep on growing.”