Robinson Math Club

Open to 4th and 5th Graders.

Meeting after school (probably Thursdays via MBX).

Teacher: Ryan Barrows (rbarrows@alum.mit.edu) - please feel free to email me, I’m open to suggestions.

Logistics: Jo Bloomfield (johanna.rae.bloomfield@gmail.com)

Competitions: Grace Fei (gracefei2004@hotmail.com)

Competitions

Math Olympiads monthly at school - November through March.

E = MC2 tournament in Culver City - March.

Girls’ Adventures in Math - April.

Manhattan Beach District Math Competition - May.

Math In The Real World

Google - It wouldn’t exist without graph theory. How would anybody find out anything? We’ll learn how it was written with simple math.

Netflix & Youtube - They keep you addicted by always tempting you to watch just one more. How do they know what you’ll like?

SpaceX - We wouldn’t all be moving to Mars in 2049 without all the mathematicians that SpaceX employs. We can talk about how hard it is to break out of gravity, how the smallest miscalculation on earth would be magnified across space, and how the speed of light limits our communications.

Basketball - Why are the Warriors the best team in basketball? Probability and 3 pointers. We can calculate why they expect to win so many games.

Art - Who is the most famous artist in the world? I don’t know. But everybody recognizes the drawings of MC Escher (the stairs that go up forever, the two hands drawing each other). His art is based on math tricks.

Surfing - Why work a job you don’t like when you’re 50, when you can just retire and surf all day instead? We’ll discover the miracle of compound interest.

Games - Gambling for money is bad. But understanding why you should do certain things based on probability is important in life, just like in blackjack and poker.

Spies - There would be no spies (left alive) if it weren’t for secret codes. We’ll learn about ciphers and how cracking them helped us win World War II.

Video Games - Why are they so addicting? Why do they look so real now whereas before they were ugly blocks? And most importantly, how can I use math to get the best loot in Fortnite?

Spam - If you use email, you probably get emails from people you don’t want to hear from trying to get you to buy something. If it weren’t for math, you’d get ten times as many! We’ll learn how spam filters work.

Baseball - The Oakland Athletics would be the worst team in Baseball if it wasn’t for a mathematician 20 years ago. Now every team hires mathematicians.

Other Suggestions Welcome!

Mailing List

Email me to get on a math club email list. I'll send around a few math puzzles over the summer with prizes for those who respond with the correct answers first. I'll also try to send out book recommendations, etc.

Sample Problems and Solutions

Attached to this letter is a sample exam from the Math Olympiad, including solutions. These questions are hard! Most students will only get 0, 1 or 2 right. Don't worry, we'll learn techniques to help them improve throughout the year. The only thing we need is their willingness to try.

Summer Activity - Unfair coins

I'm also including a summer activity for a day when they're bored and need to get out of the sun. The student who brings in the most unfair coin to our first meeting in the fall will get to choose a book from the Math Club Library to keep.

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