2009 Issue

33 T HE MATHCOUNTS FOUNDATION RECENTLY COMPLETED their 25th year of competition. MATHCOUNTS holds math competition for middle school students throughout the 57 United States and territories. Thousands of students participate each year at regional and state competitions. The top four students and top coach from each state are then invited to the National competition each year to represent their state. One of the students from Utah finished in the top 25% of the students at the 2007-2008 Lockheed Martin National competition. The 2009 Raytheon MATHCOUNTS National Competition will be held at Walt Disney World’s Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando, Florida! The 228 final Mathletes® from 57 U.S. states and territories and their coaches will be treated to a National Competition experience like no other. President Barack Obama is being sworn in to office on January 20, the anniversary of the first official game of basketball. (Obama is an avid basketball fan. Not only did he play regular games while campaigning, there is talk of installing a Mathcounts MERISA EGBERT, UTAH DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES The MATHCOUNTS Foundation is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1984 to promote math excellence among U.S. middle school students. The foundation’s headquarters are located in Alexandria, Virginia basketball court in the White House.) Here are a few problems relating to our new president’s favorite sport. The first game of basketball was played with 9 players fromeach teamon the court. Today’s rules specify that only 5 players per team should be on the court. How many combinations of 5 players can be created from a group of 9 players? Originally played with a soccer ball, basketball did not get its own ball until the late 1950s. Based on the information below, howmany cubic inches larger is the volume of a modern basketball than the volume of a modern soccer ball? Express your answer as a decimal to the nearest tenth. Soccer ball circumference = 26 inches Basketball ball circumference = 29.5 inches Not only have the rules of basketball changed over time, the dimensions of the court have changed as well. It wasn’t until 1968 that a 3-point line became a regular part of basketball. Today, the high schools and colleges set their 3-point line at 19 feet 9 inches away from the point directly be- low the center of the basket. TheNBAon the other hand, uses two lines that are parallel to, and three feet from, the side lines and a 120 degree arc that is 23 feet 9 inches from the point directly below the center of the basket that intersects each of the other two lines. If a standard basketball court is 50 feet wide and the point below the center of the hoop falls on the baseline, how much more area is inside the NBA 3-point line than the high school/college three-point line? Express your answer as a decimal to the nearest tenth. The State of Mathcounts in Utah Nearly 400 students from across the state of Utah participate in six (6) regional competitions in February. About 100 students from those com- petitions are invited to compete in the Utah State competition. Utah State University – College of Engineering provides a $3,000 cash scholarship to the top four students from the State competition. Chevron provides three (3) $1,000 scholarships to the top minority students (Female, Black, and Hispanic). 3M provides 800 t-shirts that are distributed to all competing students, coaches, school principals, volunteers and sponsors. Last year, Energy Solutions provided over 200 trophies for the top students and coaches participating at the six (6) regional competitions. To join our sponsors, please contact Marisa Egbert at 801-403-8077 or by email at utahmathcounts@aol. com. The National website is www.mathcounts.org and the Utah website address is http://www.uspeonline . com/mathcounts/home.htm. In Utah a variety of companies sponsor MATHCOUNTS through monetarily and in-kind contributions. The following are the current sponsors in Utah :