Congratulations to our Upper School (US) Robotics Teams, Team 207 Critical Mass & Team 13048 Absolute Zero for heading to the State Tournament! In their last League Tournament at Emerson Jr/Sr High School against 18 other Bergen County teams, Critical Mass ranked second while Absolute Zero ranked fourth, and both teams won awards for their work. Congratulations Bulldog Bots!
Meanwhile, our Upper and Lower School Odyssey of the Mind (OM) Teams made their way to their Regional competition this past season. Odyssey of the Mind is a creative problem-solving competition that combines STEM and the performing arts. Teams of students choose a problem in categories such as vehicle, balsa structure, or set design, engineer a solution, and present that solution in a student-written performance, complete with student-designed scenery, props, and costumes. The process requires lots of perseverance through many iterations. Students also participate in a spontaneous problem, in which they have 8 minutes to come up with a creative solution to a verbal or hands-on problem.
Our US Structure Team took 1st Place in their division with a 15g structure that held over 500 lbs and had the highest spontaneous event score of the competition! And congrats to our rookie US Classics Team, which also earned 1st Place in their division. Both US teams now head to the OM state tournament!
Our Lower School teams are new to the scene as of this year thanks to D-E 360º. While they did not advance to States, they performed incredibly well for their first season! The structure team built an 18g tower that held 75 lbs – very impressive for 4th graders! Our vehicle team composed an original song for their performance and also collaborated exceptionally well under pressure to troubleshoot a technical difficulty. Here’s to all of our D-E creative thinkers!
Finally, D-E Upper School Students Elise Zhu ’24, Alex Sheffield ’26, Brandon Zhu ’26 and Matthew Suh ’26 scored in the top 5 -10 percent of their respective American Mathematics (AMC) competitions in November, which earned each of them an invitation to the American Invitational Mathematics Competition (AIME) on February 1.
Alex scored in the top 1% nationally on the AMC 10 and in the top 25% on the AIME I. His combination of scores earned Alex an invitation to the United States of America Junior Mathematics Olympiad (USAJMO), a competition which invites only 150-250 students nationally! USAJMO is a 6-question, 9-hour proof-based competition held in late March.
We look forward to learning the results from the USAJMO, and a big congratulations to all our D-E mathletes!
