On Sept. 19, the second annual New Mexico Math Meet (NM3) took place at the Science and Math Learning Center (SMLC) here at The University of New Mexico. This year there were 27 teams totaling 100 middle schoolers from Albuquerque, Los Alamos and Las Cruces. Similar to last year, the competition was fully run by high school students and maintained its 3-round system, which consisted of Bingo, GUTS, and a Countdown Round. GUTS and Bingo had 25 questions; GUTS also had themed problems, Fermi problems and logic puzzles. Countdown had the top eight teams doing an elimination-style tournament.

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The WAZE, overall winners of NM^3.

The winning team, The Waze, consisted of students from Albuquerque Academy, Eisenhower Middle School and Desert Ridge Middle School.

This year’s success has been attributed to the new program leader, Euiryeon Aiden Kim, a senior at La Cueva High School, and his fellow team members Grace Hsieh, Ada Dyer, Alicia Peng, Ashvita Prasankumar, Daniel Choi, Iris Huang, and Alex Peng.

“The best part of the contest was seeing all the kids excited about math," said Kim. "Our goal was to make this the math contest each student looks forward to, one without the stress or pressure of other math contests, focused instead on the conversations, fun, and laughter that math can bring to kids. It was inspiring to see so many kids in the auditorium, making friends and solving problems together.”

Kim was part of the founding team led by Sean Choi last year for the First NM3. Choi, who was at the time a senior at La Cueva, said he had been inspired by a visiting professor from Carnegie Mellon University to bring his dream of a team-based math competition for students to New Mexico.

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NM3 Organizers lined up together. From left: Alex Peng, Daniel Choi, Euiryeon Kim, Grace Hsieh, Alicia Peng, Ada Dyer, Ashvita Prasankumar, Iris Huang.

With Kim graduating in the spring, the baton will again be passed down to his successors, who will now be tasked with topping this year’s meet up. Stephen Lau, co-director of the UNM-PNM math contest and one of the professors assisting at the event said this about the NM3 organizers.

“I recognize the New Mexico Math Team as gifted young mathematicians, but they command many talents, including the ability to work together in planning and pulling off such a complex event.”

While no concrete plans have been laid out for the 2027 meet-up, there are certainly high expectations set for next year’s organizers.