By Benjamin Hong, Co-Editor-in-Chief
On Wednesday, April 8, River Hill’s math community hosted the school’s second annual Integration Bee, a specialized competition that challenged students to solve complex integration problems in a collaborative team format. Principally organized by senior Clark Hu, the event brought students together for an afternoon of problem-solving and community-building.
An Integration Bee is a math competition that, as the name suggests, revolves entirely around integration, a core concept in calculus used to determine areas through continuous addition, as well as a broad array of other applications. Although they are introduced relatively early on in most calculus curricula, integrals can vary significantly in their complexity, allowing them to cater to a much wider range of proficiency levels.
This year’s event implemented a “Guts Round” format, wherein teams of students receive a set of questions that must be submitted to receive the next, more difficult set. This allows teams to work at their own pace within an allotted window of time. “It allows you not to be overwhelmed with questions,” Hu said. “More advanced teams, which might want to go faster, can go faster, and teams who might have more trouble with the earlier problems are able to spend more time on them.”
The preparation for the competition was extensive. Hu worked with members of the Math Team and the organizer of last year’s Integration Bee, Yale University freshman Alexander Michos, to compile a list of approximately 50 questions, which was carefully pared down to the final 30 integrals. In order to further ensure quality, Hu also enlisted test solvers from the Art of Problem Solving community, a notable competitive mathematics forum. “There were actually a ton of people who were interested, which I found to be really nice,” Hu noted. “It’s a great community.”
Many participants of Wednesday’s competition also found it noteworthy that the Integration Bee came to be as much about the math community as it was about the competition itself. Senior Evan Tom appreciated the mix of familiar faces and newer members, remarking that “It was amazing to see all of the new and more experienced members like me both attend this event. I was able to team up with some people I don’t normally team up with, which was fun.”
Senior Advik Rai, despite largely teaming up with friends he had worked with for years, echoed Tom’s sentiments. “Because there were four of us on each team and we had a lot of time to discuss each problem, we got to know the people better,” he explained. “It was nice to engage in past memories with them, especially since the format was similar to past events we did together.”
For Hu, this robustness of River Hill’s math community is what makes events like the Integration Bee successful. “It’s thanks to this community that people want to show up to the Integration Bee at all,” Hu stated. “That’s why I wanted to continue the Bee. I want to help encourage this community and contribute to it.”