Students face off in Math 24 competition

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, March 6, 2013

The Rowan-Salisbury School System’s third annual Math 24 competition was held on Feb. 22 at the J.F. Hurley YMCA.
The event is a demonstration of the county’s finest mathletes in action from area middle schools. In order for the competition to be a success, it takes the hard work and dedication of coaches, students, parents, school officials and community support.
The winner for the second year in a row was Bryan Stewart from Corriher-Lipe Middle School. Second runner-up Long Le, third runner-up Robert Yount and fourth runner-up Macy Currie all came from West Rowan Middle School.
West Rowan Middle was the school winner this year with an average of 108 points per participant. Southeast Middle School was second runner-up and Corriher-Lipe Middle School was third runner-up.
This year, for the first time, students from North Rowan High School’s advanced math classes served as the proctors. Sean Fox, Sports Information Director at Pfeiffer University, was emcee and David McDowell, Assistant Sports Information Director at Catawba College, was the judge for the final two rounds of play.
The 24 Game is an arithmetical card game in which the object is to find a way to manipulate four integers so that the end result is 24. The operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division may be used to make four digits equal 24.
All seven middle schools had teams of about 24 students who participated in a single-digit round and two double-digit rounds. A final round using variable cards was held as a playoff between the top four students with the highest total scores for the day.