ELIDA — The Lima Society of Professional Engineers (LSPE) held their 33rd annual MathCounts competition at Elida Middle School, Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016.

MathCounts is a national competition for fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade students with an emphasis in solving math problems.

This year, 10 schools competed at the local level. Those teams were:

Anna Middle School, Allen East Local Schools, Bath Middle School, Bellefontaine Middle School, Coldwater Junior High School, Elida Middle School, Fort Jennings Local School, Jackson Center Local School, Ottoville Middle School, and Shawnee Middle School.

A school competes by entering a team of four individuals. Individuals may also participate without being on a school team. Awards are given for both team and individual performances. The competitions consist of: Sprint, Target, Team, and Countdown Rounds.

Sprint Round: A 30 question test which must be answered in 40 minutes. This tests the student’s ability to think quickly.

Target Round: Consists of eight problems distributed in pairs, the student is given six minutes to answer each pair of problems. This round tests the students ability to think through and solve word problems.

Team Round: Each team is made up of four individuals. This round consists of 10 problems to be completed in 20 minutes. This competition encourages individuals to work together as a team to solve problems.

Countdown Round: Consists of the top eight individuals based on their combined performance from the Sprint and Target Round. These individuals compete head to head in a bracket system. The first person to answer the best out of three questions correctly moves into the next bracket. Competition continues until there is a winner. This competition encourages quick thinking in a pressured one on one competition.

Results of the local Lima area MathCounts competition

Team Winners: Based upon the scores from the individual sprint and target rounds and also the team round.

First: Shawnee Middle School, Coach Kevin Favro

Second: Elida Middle School, Coach Brady Overholt

Third: Coldwater Middle School, Coaches Karen Wenning and Maggie Rissmiller

Fourth: Bellefontaine Middle School, Coach Richard Kurtz

Individual Winners: Based upon the combined total of the sprint and target rounds.

First: Minhduc Tran, Shawnee Middle School

Second: Jon Frueh, Elida Middle School

Third: Alotus Wei, Shawnee Middle School

Fourth: Nathan Waltz, Coldwater Jr. High School

Countdown Round Winners: Based on the top eight individuals competing in head to head competition

First: MinhDuc Tran, Shawnee Middle School

Second: Nathan Waltz, Coldwater Middle School

Third: Alotus Wei, Shawnee Middle School

Fourth: Evan Kaufman, Bellefontaine Middle School

Trophies were awarded for the first four places in each category in both the Individual and Countdown rounds.

State results: Individuals and teams moving on to the State Level Competition: to be held March 12, 2016, in Columbus.

Team: Top placing Schools:

Shawnee Middle School, Coach Kevin Favro, Students: Reed Malcolm, Landin Schumacher, Alotus Wei, and MinhDuc Tran.

Elida Middle School, Coach Brady Overholt, Students: Jon Freuh, Jaden Hullinger, Joel Purugganan, and Derek Brockert

Individuals: Top 4 individuals not on the first place team:

Nathan Waltz, Coach Karen Wenning, Coldwater Middle School

Ben Horstman, Coach Kevin Horstman, Ottoville Middle School

Nathan Kaiser, Coach Karen Wenning, Coldwater Middle School

Evan Kauffman, Coach Richard Kurtz, Bellefontaine Middle School

MathCounts is sponsored nationally by:

National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Raytheon Company, CNA Foundation, U.S. Department of Defense, Northrop Grumman Foundation, Texas Instruments Incorporated, 3Mthings, Phillips 66, Art of Problem Solving and NextThought.

Locally for the Lima area competition, Ineos of Lima and the Lima Society of Profession Enineers (LSPE) will underwrite expenses for the local competition as well as travel expenses to the state competition that will be held March 12, 2016, in Columbus, Ohio. Faculty members from both Ohio State University (Lima Campus) as well as Ohio Northern University assisted in grading the exams.