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Student News
Annual Contest Achievements MUDDERS ARE WORLD-CLASS COMPETITORS
MCM/ICM: Can You Hear Me Now? Harvey Mudd College juniors Dylan Marriner, Daniel Furlong and Luis Ryan earned top honors in the 2011 International Mathematical Contest in Modeling and Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (MCM/ICM). Their team received an “Outstanding” rank, which was given to only eight teams out of 2,775 entries worldwide, for their resolution in reducing the number of radio repeaters needed to serve a geographical area. Tasked with determining the minimum number of repeaters for radio users in a 40-mile radius, the team used a clustering algorithm to group points in dense population areas and placed repeaters at the centers of each region. Their approach significantly increased the transmission capability of their network. HMC sent seven teams to the competition in February and all seven garnered high marks. In addition to the Outstanding team, one team earned a Meritorious designation (top 15 percent), three earned Honorable Mention (top 45%) and two were designated as Successful Participants.
Putnam: Problem Solving with the Stars In a test so challenging that this year’s median score was “2” out of a possible 120 points, landing on the Top 200 list—with a score of 50+—is nothing short of a stellar performance. The 39 HMC students who faced more than 4,000 competitors to earn their place in the 2010 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition shined like stars. Seven seized spots in the Top 200 List for the individual category: Palmer Mebane ’12, Craig Burkhart ’12, Jackson Newhouse ’12, Jacob Scott ’11, Kevin O’Neill ’13, Tum Chaturapruek ’14 and Lee Wiyninger ’11. Seven made the Top 500 List: Emil Guliyev ’13, Jennifer Iglesias ’12, Andrew Carter ’13, Louis Ryan ’12, Ryan Muller ’11, Aaron Pribadi ’12 and Peter Fedak ’13. Additionally, Mebane, Iglesias and Fedak placed 21st in the competition’s team category. Only five other, much larger schools—Harvard, MIT, Caltech, Stanford and Waterloo—had more than seven students in the Top 200, said math professor and Putnam Seminar Coach Francis Su.
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Harvey Mudd College
SUMMER 2011
Stuart Pernsteiner ’12, David Fielder ’11, Anak Yodpinyanee ’12 and ACM coach Zachary Dodds.
ACM: Local Champions, World Final Veterans For the second consecutive year, a team of three students from Harvey Mudd College competed against the world’s smartest computer programmers at the IBM-sponsored Battle of the Brains. The contest, held this year on May 30 in Orlando, Florida, challenges students to solve a semester’s worth of real-world problems under a grueling five-hour deadline all in the pursuit of the World’s Smartest Trophy and prizes from IBM. Computer science majors Daniel Fielder ’11, Stuart Pernsteiner ’12 and Anak Yodpinyanee ’12 successfully answered three of 11 problems in 601 minutes, earning Honorable Mention in the competition. Zhejiang University, China, placed first with eight of 11 problems solved. Harvey Mudd College is one of only 18 U.S. schools and 105 total universities to earn a spot in the prestigious contest. This was the trio’s second year winning the Southern California Regional contest and earning a spot at the world finals. In 2010, they attended the competition in Harbin, China, where they also earned an honorable mention. The team was coached by Zachary Dodds.
