ARML update - practices, flights and more

Hi Everyone,

Here are a few notes you should be aware of. Please read this entire email.

PRACTICES

Our first practice will be this Saturday, April 15, at UC Berkeley. Please see https://math.berkeley.edu/~moorxu/2017ARML/ for more details. Practice dates and locations will be updated on Moor's site as they are confirmed. If your school is able to host a practice, please contact us so we can follow up with you.

The following weekend we will take the ARML Local contest at practice, so watch for more details on that as well.

FLIGHTS

We are starting to coordinate transportation for ARML this year, and we're ready to open up the first two flight options. Here they are:

SAN FRANCISCO
Southwest 1900, June 2
SFO-LAS, 6:05-7:35am
Southwest 404, June 3
LAS-SFO, 6:15-7:45pm

OAKLAND
Southwest 1096, June 2
OAK-LAS, 5:55-7:20am
Southwest 2479, June 3
LAS-OAK, 6:35-8:00pm

For any student who purchases one of these EXACT round trips and sends us confirmation at arml@mathleague.org by midnight on April 30, we will refund $100 of your ARML fee because we will likely be able to sell your seat on the bus to someone else. Please note that the fares are likely to go up as people start buying tickets, so purchase them early if you're planning to fly. Also note that this $100 refund will not necessarily apply to other flights we open up or to purchases made after April 30; if we approve new flights or extend the deadline for claiming refunds I will post details, but DO NOT ask about other Bay Area flights for now. Any students who are interested in flying out of Sacramento should contact us to see about flight options. Remember, NO student goes to ARML unless it is on the bus or one of the flights we approve, as we need adult supervision at all times on the trip.

For parents interested in going to Las Vegas, you may feel free to book any flight you choose and to make your own arrangements for accommodations in Las Vegas. If you are traveling independently to Las Vegas, we'd still like to know your transportation details so we can coordinate various aspects of the trip with you (for instance, we may be able to assist you with ground transportation, or we may ask you to volunteer to chaperone one of the flights if you are taking one of the approved flights). Any parents interested in riding the bus or staying in the dorms on campus should contact us for more details regarding cost and availability.

T-SHIRTS

We need a team t-shirt for ARML -- and you have a chance to design it! Any student who wishes to submit a design is very welcome to do so; we will vote on the designs in in mid-May.

The deadline for submissions is Monday, May 4th. Voting will begin on Tuesday May 5th and run for one week. Once the voting begins, we will not be able to add late submissions.

Here are the ground rules -- please read them carefully, even the ones at the end!

Include the words "SFBA" or "San Francisco Bay Area" or both
Include the words "NorCal" or "Northern California" or both
Include the words "ARML" or "American Regions Mathematics League" or both
Include at least the year (2017). You *could* also include the specific days (June 2-3), and/or "UNLV" or "Las Vegas, Nevada" or "University of Nevada, Las Vegas" or some variant of this.
Do NOT include anything that might be considered offensive to other students, parents, teachers, or, well, anyone. This has never been a problem in the past, but we do explicitly reserve the right to censor submissions that fail to meet this criterion.
Do NOT use copyrighted material, unless you own the copyright!
Also, please be realistic about what your design will look like on a t-shirt

Use a maximum of 4 colors (and different shades count as different colors! This will be silk-screened, so subtle blending and mixing of these 4 colors is out; On the other hand, half-tones are ok.) Front and back count separately -- that is, you could have 2 colors on each side, or 3 on one side and 1 on the other, or simply have JUST front artwork with 4 colors. You don't need to count the background color of the shirt

It would be helpful if you can produce your design in a high-resolution version (preferably TIFF, PSD, or EPS formats, the sort of thing you can do with Photoshop, GIMP, or Paint.NET, etc.) for the printers. Low-resolution designs do NOT look good on t-shirts! If you don't have the tools to do this, our t-shirt printing company will have their art staff redo your design in a higher-resolution format if you can't, but there's no guarantee it will be exactly the same.

Email us (arml@mathleague.org) your files, the names of those who worked on the design, and a name for the design for the voting.

TEAM SELECTION

We have decided to extend the priority deadline for elite team selection to April 22 in order to give students attending the state championship a chance to claim the discounted fee (see our website for details on that) without compromising their eligibility for elite teams. Please get those payments in (or bring a check to the state meet) by the 22nd. If you have already submitted payment but want to claim the state meet discount, just email us at arml@mathleague.org and we'll help you out.

Also, be sure to spread word to your friends about ARML; we'd love to bring as many students as possible this year, and with 15% of all USAMO and USAJMO qualifiers nationally coming from Northern California this year, with your help this could be the year we place first and second at ARML! :)