The UCF Department of Mathematics is sponsoring our undergraduate students to participate in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) and Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM) on February 1 – February 5, 2024. We will recruit, organize, and train students to participate in this competition (and cover the registration fees as well). If possible, please forward this to all undergraduate students who might be interested, as we need their contributions and expertise outside mathematics. Also, we strongly believe our students will benefit from this unique opportunity.
In the past few years there are more than 20,000 teams participating in the MCM/ICM contests throughout the world. Our UCF teams often have been highly ranked, earning many Meritorious Awards and Honorable Mentions.
Students participate as team members rather than as individuals – creating an environment for peer learning and skill development. You could find more information such as contest history, registration, and rules at the website (a brief introduction below)
www.mcmcontest.com
During this Spring competition, each team of 3 undergraduate (or high school students with UCF dual enrollment) students will work as a group on one of the modeling problems:
– MCM Problem A (continuous)
– MCM Problem B (discrete)
– MCM Problem C (data insights)
– ICM Problem D (operations research/network science)
– ICM Problem E (sustainability)
– ICM Problem F (policy)
You could view modeling problems from previous years via the webpage
https://www.contest.comap.com/undergraduate/contests/mcm/previous-contests.php
The Spring competition will start at 5pm on Thursday February 1 and end at 8pm on Monday February 5. Each team has about 4 days to understand/simplify the real-life problem, formulate appropriate mathematical models, perform model analysis and simulations, interpret their mathematical results etc. At the end, they need to submit their own solution paper, on which they will be judged.
Students who are interested could contact our faculty advisors (contacting information listed at the end) and/or fill in the online teamsheet via the following link
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yx3HLvAlBeeG954VMnRCIDKGfdjsSximNUpMwlsjph4/edit?usp=sharing
We are going to hold several meeting/training sessions to prepare our students for the competition.
- Session 1: 10:30am-11:30am (also 3:00pm-4:00pm) on Friday, Jan 26, in MSB 318
- Session 2: 5:00pm-6:00pm on Monday, Jan 29, in MSB 110
- Session 3: 4:30pm-5:30pm on Tuesday, Jan 30, in MSB 110
- Session 4: 5:00pm-6:00pm on Wednesday, Jan 31, in MSB 110
Students are welcome to attend any of these training sessions even they are not planning to participate the competition this year.
Thanks and have a wonderful semester!
UCF MCM/ICM Faculty Advisors
Teng Zhang (Teng.Zhang@ucf.edu)
Zhisheng Shuai (Zhisheng.Shuai@ucf.edu)
Update (2/5/2024): We are delighted to announce that three UCF teams have successfully participated in the 2024 MCM/ICM competition (Feb 1-5).
Update (2023): We are delighted to announce that three UCF teams have successfully participated in the 2023 MCM/ICM competition (Feb 16-20), and all of them were named Successful Participant. See the detailed information at 2023 Teams
Update (2/22/2022): We are delighted to announce that two UCF teams have successfully participated in the 2022 MCM/ICM competition. See the detailed information at 2022 Teams
Update (5/6/2022): The team of Evan Aldrich, Al-sadh Imadh, Caleb May was awarded Meritorious, and the team of Danielle Metivier, Luis Santori, Connor Shrader was named Successful Participant. Congratulations to all for their exceptional performance in the 2022 MCM/ICM.