Apply for the ARML Student Leadership Program; FMM contest on Oct 10

Hi everyone,

Help us run the SFBA/NorCal + WWW ARML teams! Student leaders have the opportunity to participate in administrative discussions, organizing practices, and helping with logistics. We will work with each selected student leader to determine a personalized set of projects to pursue. We intend for student leaders to design their project in partnership with one of the coaches, and to take active ownership of their project. Student leaders should have attended ARML as part of SFBA/NorCal or Wild Wild West at least once in the past. We encourage student leaders to plan to attend ARML in 2021, though this is not a strict requirement.

To apply, fill out the application form by end of day on October 11. This application should not take long (no more than 20 minutes); we just want to get to know you better in the process. Form: https://forms.gle/PsH9cLKJDDGhWLsD9 

I'd also like to share a math contest opportunity organized by a group of SFBA ARML team members. Over the past few months, I've watched this group build a new math outreach organization called NanoMath and write problems for the inaugural Fall Math Meet. I always challenge students to give back, provide opportunities for others, and help us make our math community stronger. The NanoMath team has met and exceeded that challenge. I love their mission and their relentless drive to build a great math contest, and I'm looking forward to seeing Fall Math Meet come to life. The FMM contest announcement is below, and I hope that many of you will join them on October 10.

Are you working on something cool that you'd like to share with our community? Let me know! I'm always happy to share opportunities with the world. Hope all of you are doing well, stay safe, and I look forward to seeing many of you at online events this fall! :)

Best,

Moor

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

We are NanoMath, a student-run mathematical outreach organization.

We will be holding the Fall Math Meet (FMM) competition online on Saturday, October 10th, 2020, at 9:15am Pacific Time, with check-in starting at 8:45am. The contest will last until roughly 3pm Pacific Time, with various activities. There will be a lunch break in the middle. The contest will be held live via a Zoom meeting.

The contest is taken in teams of 3 students, and consists of three rounds. The Individual Round is ARML-style; 10 minutes for each of 5 pairs of problems. In the Team Round, you have one hour to solve 15 problems collaboratively. The Speed Round is taken in teams and consists of 50 shorter problems to be solved in 30 minutes. The contest is designed for high school and advanced middle school students; problems range in difficulty from early AMC to late AIME. We have made the contest beginner-friendly; if you don't have contest experience but are doing well in your high school math class, you are encouraged to compete, and the contest should be reasonably approachable for you.

Activities include an estimathon, a guest lecture by Simon Rubinstein-Salzedo, director of Euler Circle, and a problem review from Po-Shen Loh, professor at Carnegie Mellon University and USA IMO team coach.

Prizes to be given include Klein bottles, gift cards, and more!

Registration and additional details at our website: https://nanomath.org/fmm

Join our contest discord server at https://discord.gg/YuMKgWe

NanoMath staff team: Albert Tam, Ashwin Rajan, Darren Yao, Johan Ko, Oliver Ni, and Sarah Fujimori
FMM Contest Advisor: Moor Xu

Final ARML practice + celebration on Sunday!

Hi everyone,

Our season wrap-up practice and celebration will be 5pm-7pm Pacific time on Sunday, June 7. This final practice will feature a song contest showcase of our wonderful submissions, a final team meeting presenting some team awards, another Estimathon, and maybe some other math games. 

We've come a long way since our first online practice on April 4, and I hope that these practices have provided a sense of stability and normalcy in these chaotic and uncertain times. I've certainly enjoyed these two months of practices with all of you. This Sunday, I hope to see everyone one more time to celebrate our achievements, celebrate the spirit of ARML, and do some more math with friends. :)

Best,

Moor

Schedule update for final practices

Hi everyone, 

If you're participating in ARML Local on Saturday, you should have received information about the contest from ARML already, and we'll be in touch in the coming days to further coordinate to make sure contest day runs as smoothly as possible. As a reminder, ARML Local is scheduled for Saturday May 30, 1pm-4pm Pacific time. 

I've just posted an updated schedule for our final practices and team meetings at the practice website. Here are some highlights:

On Sunday, May 31, we'll have a practice / math activities at our usual time of 5pm-7pm Pacific time. The menu so far features a FARML Math Jam and some fun mathy activities... we're currently thinking we'll have a Kahoot session and an Integration Bee. Please let us know if you have any suggestions or if you want to help lead an activity. We had previously advertised a final team meeting on this day, but we then realized that it didn't make much sense to have a final team meeting before ARML Local results were released (it'll take a few days for ARML to tabulate results from around the country and various international organizations). So we'll take this time to do some fun math instead! :)

The following weekend, we won't have anything on Saturday June 6 (good luck to those of you participating in AOIME). On Sunday June 7, we'll have a season wrapup practice and celebration, with more math-themed activities, presentation of ARML Local results, a final team meeting, and some games! Save the date, and join us to wrap up this memorable ARML season.

Best,

Moor

ARML Local Slack and T-Shirts

Dear amazing ARML Local contestants,

Later this afternoon before practice today, I will be creating a Slack workspace for ARML Local.  Please make sure to join the Slack workspace before practice today.  Feel free to use other forms of communication among your relay teams, but Slack worked well during FARML and will be your go-to form of communication at ARML Local if you don't have anything else set up.

I do not have email addresses for the following students.  They will not be able to join ARML Local unless we have a valid email address for them:

• [redacted]

Please send us your email addresses by 5 PM today; otherwise, we will not register you for ARML Local.

Moreover, if you are not currently signed up for ARML Local and would like to join, please email me by 5 PM today.  I will do my best to accommodate last-minute signups.

Lastly, remember to order your ARML 2020 t-shirts!  If you want a team t-shirt this year, you can get one at this link: https://www.customink.com/fundraising/arml2020.  You can select either a red or pink shirt (in a variety of sizes) or a mask.  The deadline for shirt orders is Monday afternoon (May 25).  The shirts are listed as a fundraiser on CustomInk because that was the easiest way for us to get them mailed directly to your homes, not because we're actually trying to run a fundraiser. :) 

All the best,

Freya Edholm (she/her/hers)

Intern, mathleague.org

ARML Local final list, and checking contact info

Dear all,

At the bottom of this message is the list of everyone we have signed up for ARML Local next Saturday, both students and parent proctors.  I need to make sure that we have the correct list of names, and a working email address for each person.

Here is what you need to do:

• Check the appropriate list below (proctors or students) and make sure you're on it if you expect to be.  If you are not on that list, I need to know by the end of the day today, or you won't be able to participate in ARML Local.
• Check your email.  You should have received (or should soon receive) a message from me with the subject line "Checking student contact info for ARML Local".  If you did not, please reply with a valid email address where we can reach you.
• Proctors only: You should instead have an email with the subject line "Checking proctor contact info for ARML Local".  Again, if you appear on the proctor list below and don't have that email, please reply with your correct email address.

I need any corrections by the end of the day today.  We will register teams for ARML Local tomorrow morning, and after that no changes will be possible.

--Silas

List of parent proctors:

[redacted]

List of students participating:

[redacted]

ARML Local elite teams and teammates; t-shirt orders!

Hi everyone, 

The coaches have selected elite teams for this year's ARML Local contest (to be held on May 30 starting at 1pm Pacific time). The list of elite teams are at the end of this email. 

If you are not on an elite team, you have a brief opportunity to nominate a single teammate to be on your team. In order to do so, you can fill out our teammate preference form. Valid teammate requests much be mutual - both people have to fill out the form, and request the other person. We will do our best to fulfill valid requests of teammate pairs. For highest chances of success, I recommend submitting someone from the same region (i.e. both people in the pair from Northern California / SFBA, or both from Wild Wild West, or both from "Friends"). The deadline to do so is the end of day TODAY (Wednesday, May 20). We will then assemble a full team roster for all of our teams.

If you have not yet signed up for ARML Local, you have one final opportunity to do so at our ARML Local sign-up sheet. We are required to register our team rosters later this week. Also, we need around 15 more proctors. Parents, if you are able to proctor during ARML Local, we'd appreciate your help... please also fill out the sign-up sheet and list yourself as a proctor.

We will have practices this weekend at the usual times: Saturday and Sunday, 5pm-7pm Pacific time. The Saturday practice will be an ARML Local practice with your assigned teams. If you can only make one practice this weekend, please come on Saturday. The Sunday practice will feature a mix of other activities, including another Estimathon.

Finally, we're now ready for t-shirt orders! If you want a team t-shirt this year, you can get one at this link: https://www.customink.com/fundraising/arml2020. You can select either a red or pink shirt (in a variety of sizes) or a mask. The deadline for shirt orders is the afternoon of Monday May 25. The shirts are listed as a fundraiser on CustomInk because that was the easiest way for us to get them mailed directly to your homes, not because we're actually trying to run a fundraiser. :)

Best,

Moor

===========================

List of elite teams:

SFBA

[redacted]

[redacted]

[redacted]

[redacted]

[redacted]

[redacted]

[redacted]

[redacted]

[redacted]

Sacramento

[redacted]

Wild Wild West

[redacted] 

ARML Local 2020 Signups

Dear all,

Below is the list of students who are currently signed up for ARML Local.  If your name is not on this list and you would like to attend ARML Local, please fill the following form out ASAP:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf05QmLzte_Xr_nEPQF6IBkcybEmR9O2zr9HtaClufGWKFPEg/viewform

Also, we are in desperate need of proctors, so if you are a parent and able to proctor, please fill out the above form as well.  Thanks in advance!

Expect an email midday tomorrow with elite teams and a form to request a teammate if you are not on an elite team.  You will have less than 24 hours to fill out that form once you receive it.

All the best,

Freya Edholm (she/her/hers)

Intern, mathleague.org

——————————————————

[redacted]

Practice update for today; ARML Local sign-up reminder

Hi everyone,

We'll have practice again today (Sunday May 17), 5pm-7pm Pacific time. As usual, I'll send the Zoom link to this list 10 minutes before the start of practice.

During the first hour (5pm-6pm Pacific), we'll have individual problems. This will also constitute a tryout for ARML Local. We'll also have a guts round scimmage and a beginner's room at practice today.

If you have questions about ARML Local or about tryouts, please see the email blog for my previous email. As a reminder, if you want to participate in ARML Local on May 30, please let us know by the end of day today on our ARML Local sign-up sheet. Parents, we also need a lot more proctors; if you're available to help on May 30, please also fill out the sign-up sheet and select the "Proctor" option.

One more thing: song contest submissions are due at the end of day on Monday (send a submission to arml@mathleague.org if you'd like to participate).

Best,

Moor

Re: [2020 ARML] - FARML; this weekend's practice; ARML Local teams; Song Contest

Correction: The ARML Local sign-up sheet is here: https://forms.gle/UnM6FJEpbGS4LAFC6 

Please use this link, NOT the FARML link I sent out in the previous email. Sorry!

On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 1:16 AM Moor Xu <moorxu@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone, 

We're deep into ARML season now, and there's a whole bunch of things going on over the next few weeks. Let's get to it!

FARML

FARML will be this Saturday, and details are available at the FARML website. If you requested to be placed onto a FARML team, we have done so, and you'll be registered for the competition this weekend. If you can no longer make it, please let us know ahead of time so we can replace you, so that your team isn't left short-handed. If you did not request to be placed on a team but want to participate, please let us know as soon as possible... we may be able to accommodate additional participants on our teams.

For those of you signed up for FARML, I expect that the FARML organizing committee will communicate any logistical information directly to you, as needed. We will provide your email addresses to the FARML organizing committee for that purpose. As a result of FARML, we will NOT have practice this Saturday. Good luck at the competition!

This weekend's practice

We will not have practice on Saturday. We will have practice at our usual time on Sunday: 5pm-7pm Pacific time, and as usual, I will send out a Zoom link 10 minutes before the start of practice. I will update the practice website with details about the Sunday practice as they becomes available.

Either during or adjacent to our practice on Sunday, we plan to hold an additional tryout opportunity for ARML Local.

ARML Local teams

We will participate in ARML Local on the afternoon of Saturday May 30, and we'll need to go through another opt-in and team formation process for this new competition. 

Students: In order to compete in ARML Local, you MUST fill out the ARML Local sign-up sheet. Please do this by end of day on Sunday May 17. You must do this even if you've filled out one of our many other forms, or were on an elite team for FARML. It is essential that we know who can commit to being available on the day of ARML Local. We will then select elite teams based on who has filled out the sign up sheet. Afterward, we'll send around another teammate preference survey. For ARML Local, we will NOT ask for you to list everyone you want on your team. Instead, we will ask you to submit only one teammate. If the request is mutual, we'll put you on the same team. Beyond those preferences, the coaches will have discretion to form teams (and will do so mostly geographically).

Parents: We will need to provide a large number of proctors during ARML Local. If you're available to volunteer to be a proctor, please also fill out the ARML Local sign-up sheet to let us know (select the Proctor option).

We are offering an additional tryout opportunity for elite team selection for ARML Local this weekend, either during or adjacent to practice on Sunday. While we encourage everyone to attend as many tryouts as possible, you are required to attend at least one practice to be eligible for elite team selection. If this requirement is a problem, please let us know.

Note for students from outside of the Bay Area, Northern California, or what we've traditionally called "Wild Wild West" (AZ, ID, MT, NE, parts of NV, NM, ND, SD, WY): If your home region has an ARML Local team, you should compete with that team for the official competition; if your home region does not have an ARML Local team, please sign up using the form above, and we will include you on our teams if allowed by ARML rules.

Song Contest and logistics

• We have extended the song contest deadline to the end of day on Monday May 18. If you wish to participate, please send a submission to arml@mathleague.org. There are no other rules for the Song Contest at this time -- we want to see what you produce! Based on the submissions that we receive, we will decide whether to proceed with a song contest or instead have a song showcase -- let me know if you have a preference.
• The practice website continues to be updated regularly. Practice materials can be opened using username = sfba and password = arml.
• Past emails can be found at the email blog,
• Know someone who might want to participate in ARML Local and/or come to practice? They should sign up for the email list or email us directly.

Again, good luck to those of you competing in FARML this weekend, and I hope to see many of you on Sunday!

Best,

Moor

_______________________________________________
arml-announce mailing list
arml-announce@lists.stanford.edu
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/arml-announce

FARML; this weekend's practice; ARML Local teams; Song Contest

Hi everyone, 

We're deep into ARML season now, and there's a whole bunch of things going on over the next few weeks. Let's get to it!

FARML

FARML will be this Saturday, and details are available at the FARML website. If you requested to be placed onto a FARML team, we have done so, and you'll be registered for the competition this weekend. If you can no longer make it, please let us know ahead of time so we can replace you, so that your team isn't left short-handed. If you did not request to be placed on a team but want to participate, please let us know as soon as possible... we may be able to accommodate additional participants on our teams.

For those of you signed up for FARML, I expect that the FARML organizing committee will communicate any logistical information directly to you, as needed. We will provide your email addresses to the FARML organizing committee for that purpose. As a result of FARML, we will NOT have practice this Saturday. Good luck at the competition!

This weekend's practice

We will not have practice on Saturday. We will have practice at our usual time on Sunday: 5pm-7pm Pacific time, and as usual, I will send out a Zoom link 10 minutes before the start of practice. I will update the practice website with details about the Sunday practice as they becomes available.

Either during or adjacent to our practice on Sunday, we plan to hold an additional tryout opportunity for ARML Local.

ARML Local teams

We will participate in ARML Local on the afternoon of Saturday May 30, and we'll need to go through another opt-in and team formation process for this new competition. 

Students: In order to compete in ARML Local, you MUST fill out the ARML Local sign-up sheet. Please do this by end of day on Sunday May 17. You must do this even if you've filled out one of our many other forms, or were on an elite team for FARML. It is essential that we know who can commit to being available on the day of ARML Local. We will then select elite teams based on who has filled out the sign up sheet. Afterward, we'll send around another teammate preference survey. For ARML Local, we will NOT ask for you to list everyone you want on your team. Instead, we will ask you to submit only one teammate. If the request is mutual, we'll put you on the same team. Beyond those preferences, the coaches will have discretion to form teams (and will do so mostly geographically).

Parents: We will need to provide a large number of proctors during ARML Local. If you're available to volunteer to be a proctor, please also fill out the ARML Local sign-up sheet to let us know (select the Proctor option).

We are offering an additional tryout opportunity for elite team selection for ARML Local this weekend, either during or adjacent to practice on Sunday. While we encourage everyone to attend as many tryouts as possible, you are required to attend at least one practice to be eligible for elite team selection. If this requirement is a problem, please let us know.

Note for students from outside of the Bay Area, Northern California, or what we've traditionally called "Wild Wild West" (AZ, ID, MT, NE, parts of NV, NM, ND, SD, WY): If your home region has an ARML Local team, you should compete with that team for the official competition; if your home region does not have an ARML Local team, please sign up using the form above, and we will include you on our teams if allowed by ARML rules.

Song Contest and logistics

• We have extended the song contest deadline to the end of day on Monday May 18. If you wish to participate, please send a submission to arml@mathleague.org. There are no other rules for the Song Contest at this time -- we want to see what you produce! Based on the submissions that we receive, we will decide whether to proceed with a song contest or instead have a song showcase -- let me know if you have a preference.
• The practice website continues to be updated regularly. Practice materials can be opened using username = sfba and password = arml.
• Past emails can be found at the email blog,
• Know someone who might want to participate in ARML Local and/or come to practice? They should sign up for the email list or email us directly.

Again, good luck to those of you competing in FARML this weekend, and I hope to see many of you on Sunday!

Best,

Moor

FARML team Slack workspaces

Dear fearless FARMLers,

I have created a Slack workspace for each FARML team.  I have invited all FARML students as well as their coaches to their team's FARML Slack workspace.  If you haven't already, please join the Slack workspace and rename yourself to your real name (first and last), and (if possible) DM me the members of your relay team.

These are the main reasons we are using Slack:

1. Zoom does not allow users to send DMs to more than one other user.  Since relay teams have 3 members, we need another platform that allows group messaging.
2. We need a standardized method of communication among each team.  Many students met their FARML teammates for the first time on Saturday.  As a result, we cannot let students find ways to communicate with each other on their own.
3. Other messaging platforms like Hangouts, text, or Messenger support group texts, but each group with different members ends up being a separate conversation.  We would like to have all group messages from each FARML team in the same place, which Slack allows.
4. It's easy to add and remove members from Slack workspaces, in case we need to do last-minute updates to our teams' rosters.
5. To join Slack, all you need to do is click on the invite link (and maybe type in your email address); you don't even need to set a password until after you've joined.  So making an account to join the server only takes one click :)
   

Lastly, our database is missing email addresses for the following students, so they could not be added to their team's Slack workspace.  If any of you know their email addresses, please let us know so we can add them to their workspaces.  The highlight color of students' names is the color of the team they are on.

[redacted]

All the best,

Freya Edholm (she/her/hers)

Intern, mathleague.org

Preview: Practice today (Sunday May 10)

Hi everyone, 

Just wanted to send along a quick update the activities that we'll have at practice today. As usual, practice will be 5pm-7pm Pacific time, and the practice schedule is at the practice website. I'll be in touch again at 4:50pm Pacific time with a link to today's Zoom meeting. 

During the first hour, we'll have

• Simon speaking about some of his favorite factoring tricks
• Advanced Power Question seminar with Tim
• Beginner's Room with some relay and team questions

During the second hour, we'll have 

• Beginner's Power Question seminar with Tim
• Estimathon with Silas

For those of you planning to participate in the Estimathon today, we have just posted the Estimathon Rules (click the link), and I encourage you to read it before practice. To quote from the rules document: "Andy's usual advice at Estimathons is that the team that best understands the scoring computation has the best chance of winning."

To all the mothers out there: Happy Mother's Day! 

Best,

Moor

FARML practice logistics for this weekend

Hello fantastic FARMLers!

As Moor mentioned earlier this week, practices will occur at the usual times this weekend, but tomorrow's practice will be a FARML team practice.  This is your chance to practice with your FARML team before the competition next Saturday, so please do your best to show up.  Sunday's practice will be our usual mix of ARML and non-ARML content, including a session from Simon Rubinstein-Salzedo on factoring tricks (yes, this is the Simon from SFFT).  :)

Below this email is a list of students who are currently signed up to participate in FARML.  If your name is not on this list, and you'd like to participate in the competition, please be sure to fill out the following sign-up form by the end of the day today.  Note that we can no longer guarantee that teammate preferences will be accommodated, but we will do the best we can.  Final team assignments will be sent out tomorrow before practice.

For those of you who joined this email list in the past 24 hours, you can find previous team emails on the email blog.  If you are receiving this email without being subscribed to the list (e.g. it was forwarded to you by a friend), you can subscribe to our mailing list by filling out the ARML application.  Make sure to answer 5 for the last question :)

 

All the best,

Freya Edholm (she/her/hers)

Intern, mathleague.org

———————————————————

These are the students who are currently signed up for FARML:

[redacted]

FARML teams; next weekend's practices; extended t-shirt deadlines

Hi everyone, 

Here's a bunch of information regarding our plans for the next few weeks.

FARML teams

Thanks for everyone who came to tryouts the past few weekends. The coaches have selected three "elite" teams of 15 students to represent the SFBA / Northern California region at FARML on May 16, and those lists are at the end of this email. 

If you were not selected for one of these teams (regardless of whether you attended tryouts), you are also invited to participate in FARML. Please fill out the following sign-up form, which also gives you an opportunity to request teammates! This form is due by the end of day on Thursday, May 7.

https://forms.gle/SBCwGWRanc2EHYYz7 

Note: If you want to participate in FARML, you need to fill out this form even if you opted-in for tryouts on an earlier form. However, if you were selected for an elite team and your name appears at the end of this email, you do not need to fill out the form. If you miss this deadline, we may need to consider you an "alternate" for the competition. We will collate sign-ups and teammate preference information on Friday, and we expect to send out full team rosters for all of our FARML teams (both elite and non-elite) before our next practice. While we cannot promise to fulfill every teammate preference request, we will try our best, and remaining spots will be filled mostly geographically. 

For those of you from outside of SFBA / Northern California (the "Wild Wild West and Friends" contingent of our team this year), we have not yet selected any Wild Wild West teams yet. You also need to fill out the form above and indicate teammate preferences, if any. We also plan to announce WWW teams before our next practice.

Plan for this weekend (May 9 and May 10)

We will have our practices online at the usual times: 5pm-7pm Pacific time on both Saturday and Sunday. However, the two days will not feature the same material this week.

On Saturday, we will have a FARML team practice with your FARML teams (that we will announce over email before practice). This is your chance to practice with your team before the competition on May 16. While some of you might only usually attend on Sundays, we encourage you to also attend on Saturday this week so you can work with your teammates.

On Sunday, we will have a typical set of other activities during the usual practice time. Rumor is that Simon is going to show some cool math! We'll have more details soon, to be announced over email and posted on the practice website.

Plan for FARML (and following weekends)

The FARML competition will be 8:30am-3:00pm Pacific time on Saturday, May 16. A detailed schedule is available at http://mathleague.org/farml2020/. Please note the much earlier time of the competition compared to our usual practices.

We plan to have a Sunday practice on May 17, with a similar set of non-ARML activities as Sunday this weekend.

We have not yet started putting together ARML Local teams. Since FARML requires 15-person teams and ARML Local requires 6-person teams, we will likely need to go through a similar team formation process (select elite teams, accept teammate preferences, then announce full roster) as the current process for FARML. We intend to start this process during the week after FARML, in time for us to have an ARML Local practice on May 23. The ARML Local competition will be on May 30. 

Other housekeeping announcements (and more time to submit shirt designs)

• Practice materials from last weekend's practice are now online at the practice website. Use username=sfba and password=arml to access the files.
• The practice schedule at the practice website is also frequently updated as we plan for each weekend's practice.
• Past emails are available at the email blog.
• If you aren't on the email list yet, please subscribe.
• We have extended the shirt design submission deadline until the end of day today (Wednesday). See my earlier email for details.

Best,

Moor

=======================================

Elite Team Assignments

Note: if your name appears below but you can no longer participate in FARML on May 16, please let us know as soon as possible so your team is not left short-handed.

[redacted]

Practices and tryouts this weekend; other announcements

Hi everyone, 

We will have our usual ARML practices this weekend: 5pm-7pm Pacific time on both Saturday and Sunday, on Zoom. As usual, I will send Zoom links to this email list 10 minutes before each session begins. You can see the practice schedule at the practice website. 

This weekend's practice:

At this weekend's practice, we will two special events on each day: 

• Introduction to Quadratic Forms with Sarah Fujimori
• This session will feature an introduction to the theory of quadratic forms, discussing some key results and examples (such as sum of two squares, Legendre's four square theorem, Bhargava's 290 theorem), and discussing an Euler Circle research project on this subject. It assumes very basic knowledge of linear algebra (i.e., what matrices and vectors are and how to multiply them), and contest-level number theory like modular arithmetic.
• Introduction to Computational Linguistics (and NACLO) with Freya Edholm

If you would like to run a session at a future practice, please get in touch with me!

Tryouts and team selection:

We will also have tryouts for our FARML and ARML Local teams this weekend, on the following schedule:

• Saturday, May 2, 7pm-8pm Pacific time (the hour after practice)
• Sunday, May 3, 4pm-5pm Pacific time (the hour before practice)
  

The two tryouts will feature different content, and you're encouraged to attend both sessions if possible. You're also encouraged to attend regardless of whether you want to opt-in for team selection, as it's a good opportunity to practice some math. These will likely be the final tryouts before FARML.

Please note that you must OPT-IN if you want to be considered for elite teams for this year's competition. If you have not yet done so, please fill out the team selection opt-in form.

We intend to announce team selection decisions early next week for FARML (not ARML Local - that will be a future process). We will then give everyone not selected a short window of opportunity (a day or two) to form their own groupings for teams before we form the remaining teams (likely geographically). Watch out for that process in the middle of next week. For more information about tryouts, FARML, and ARML Local, please see my previous email. We plan to participate in FARML on May 16, which will need to be a longer practice than usual... more information to come next week. 

Shirt designs and other housekeeping:

• Shirt designs are due by end of day on May 4th. If you'd like to submit a design, please see my previous email. 
• Past practice materials are posted on the practice website. Use username=sfba and password=arml to access the files. 
• An archive of past emails is available at the email blog. 
• If you know anyone who might like to attend these weekend practices, please forward this email and encourage them to sign up for our mailing list.

A summer opportunity:

Long-time team member Matthew Hase-Liu reached out to me today. He's at Harvard now, and asked me to pass this message along. Looks like an exciting opportunity!

Some friends and I are putting together an online summer program for high school students, MORPH, where we will match Harvard undergraduate mentors with 1-3 high school students to learn and read in depth about a topic in mathematics (or statistics or computer science). We know many math summer programs have been cancelled and we hope to provide an alternative, including online social activities and a sense of community. The program will be free of charge, and our undergraduate math organization (Harvard Undergraduate Math Association) will subsidize books for admitted students.

 

You can find out more about us at sites.google.com/college.harvard.edu/morph/home. It would be great if you could pass on this opportunity to math circles or anyone who might be interested! Some exposure to proofs is preferable, but we are trying to reach students at all levels of experience.

It's heartening to see our community come together to create new opportunities for students in these challenging times, and I hope to be able to share more opportunities with all of you in future emails.

Looking forward to seeing a lot of you this weekend!

Best,

Moor

Tryouts and practices this weekend; t-shirts and song contest

Hi everyone, 

We will have practices again this week at the usual times: 5pm-7pm Pacific time on both Saturday and Sunday. See the practice website for details. As usual, we will send out the Zoom link for practice in this mailing list.

This week's practices: 

This week, in addition to the usual ARML tests and a Guts round (which we're scaling up to a "Guts Party" this weekend!),  Nick Wu will do a session on Advanced Topics in Competitive Programming. Please click the link for details (and there's a survey there for you to tell Nick what you want to see). As in past weeks, both Saturday and Sunday will offer the same breakout room choices; if you attend both days, you should select different breakout rooms the second time. 

Tryouts this weekend:

We plan to participate in the FARML competition on May 16 and the ARML Local competition on May 30. As I mentioned in my previous email, we will field as many teams as necessary to allow everyone to participate. The coaching staff will select a few "elite" teams to compete against other top teams from around the country. If you'd like to be considered for one of the elite teams, we are holding tryouts this weekend and next weekend. 

This year, we are asking that students opt-in for consideration for elite teams. By default, you would not be considered for elite team selection regardless of your score. If you would like to be considered for an elite team, please fill out our opt-in form (click the link). Note: we know that many of you have already filled out some of this information when you signed up for the email list, but you need to complete this form to be considered for team selection.

If you want to try out for our elite teams, you should also attend tryouts. We will have tryouts both this weekend and next weekend, adjacent to the practices:

• Saturday, April 25, 4-5pm Pacific (the hour before our Saturday practice -- we will start promptly at 4pm; I will send out the Zoom link by 3:50pm, and please be online and ready to do math by 3:55pm if possible.)
• Sunday, April 26, 7-8pm Pacific (the hour after our Sunday practice)
• Saturday, May 2, 7pm-8pm Pacific time
• Sunday, May 3, 4pm-5pm Pacific time
  

Every practice will feature different content, so we will have four distinct tryout opportunities. You are encouraged to attend as many as possible. And you're also encouraged to attend regardless of whether you're formally trying out for an elite team -- feel free to come by even if you just want to do an extra hour of math before or after practice. 

Note: If you're from a location outside of the Bay Area, Northern California, or what we've traditionally called "Wild Wild West" (AZ, ID, MT, NE, parts of NV, NM, ND, SD, WY), you're welcome to come to tryouts. If your home region has a FARML or ARML Local team, you should compete with them for the official competition; if your home region does not have a FARML or ARML Local team, you're welcome to join one of our teams.

T-Shirts: 

One of the great traditions of ARML is for teams to design matching t-shirts to wear on the day of the competition. Even though we aren't traveling to a national competition this year, we will intend to have shirts. We invite you to submit a design for this year's team t-shirt! After designs are submitted, the full team will vote on their favorite.

Designs should consist of a front design and a back design. To keep screen-printing costs low, you can use either (a) three colors on one side and one color on the other, or (b) two colors on each side.

When submitting your design, send an email to arml@mathleague.org with exactly four files:
A .png file (.jpeg is okay in a pinch) of the front design, preferably superimposed on a t-shirt shape to show how it's positioned
A .png file of the back design (like the above)
A vector-graphics file (such as .tif) of the front design
A vector-graphics file of the back design
The .png files will be used on the ballot for voting on designs, while the vector-graphics files will be sent to the printer if your design is chosen.

This year, we have a combined year covering "SFBA/NorCal" or "Bay Area/Northern California" and "Wild Wild West" in addition to friends from elsewhere. If you choose to identify the team in your design, you can use those or similar terms. You might also want to include "ARML", "2020", or other such things. None of these are mandatory. Please do not include anything offensive in the design; coaching staff reserve the right to censor or edit as necessary.

The deadline to submit designs is end of day on May 4th.

Song Contest:

Another ARML tradition from the East Coast is the Song Contest, where teams write math or ARML-themed songs (often parodies of popular songs) and perform them at the competition. We're importing this tradition this year, and we plan to hold our Song Contest some time in May. If you'd like to participate, this is a great time to start brainstorming. We accept both individual and group entries for the Song Contest.

The deadline to enter into the Song Contest is end of day on May 11th. We will likely ask you to submit a YouTube video, and we will invite finalists to perform at a later practice. Further details will come soon.

Logistics and housekeeping:

• Materials for past practice are now on the practice website. To view those files, please use username=sfba and password=arml.
  
• As usual, the Zoom link for practice will be sent to this email list approximately 10 minutes before each practice begins. Please log on with your real name, and try to be on time.
• See our email archive for a record of any past emails you may have missed. Zoom links won't be posted there though. http://sfbaarml.blogspot.com/.
• If you aren't on this mailing list (for example, if someone forwarded this email to you, or if you're seeing this on the email blog), you won't receive meeting links. Go to http://mathleague.org/armlapp.php to sign up for the email list.
  
• Feel free to forward this to anyone who might be interested in joining us at our practices. They'll need to sign up for our email list to receive Zoom links.

Hope to see many of you this weekend, and stay safe!

Best,

Moor

Feedback survey; tryouts next week

Hi everyone, 

Great to see everyone at practice this past weekend. Thanks to Simon and Nick for hosting their special sessions, and thanks to all of the coaches for helping out at this weekend's sessions. We hope to bring more breakout rooms next weekend, featuring both ARML and non-ARML content. If you'd like to run a session in a future week, please get in touch with me! We will continue to have practice 5pm-7pm Pacific on both Saturday and Sunday next weekend (and each subsequent week until Memorial Day).

Practice materials are now available at https://math.berkeley.edu/~moorxu/2020ARML/. To access the materials, use username=sfba and password=arml. 

Please help us make these sessions better by filling out this feedback survey! The survey is anonymous and all questions are optional. All feedback is valuable. If you're in a hurry, the feedback can be filled out in 15 seconds; if you want to take the time to write more, we'll read every word.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfMcgpG3WH1f5sgrEHTZ5rlYwlCw6KP8Hys44bKABxAtoD4GA/viewform

Later this spring, we plan to participate in the FARML and ARML Local contests (also on Zoom). We will organize as many teams as needed to give everyone the opportunity to participate. The coaching staff will select a few teams to compete against other top teams from around the country; everyone else will also compete on either regional or self-organized teams.

If you'd like to be considered for one of the selected "elite" teams, we are holding tryouts (on Zoom) next weekend, during the hour either before or after our usual practice. The schedule is as follows:

• Saturday, April 25, 4-5pm Pacific
• Sunday, April 26, 7-8pm Pacific

The two tryouts will feature different problems. and you are encouraged to attend as many as possible. We will also hold additional tryouts in the future, probably the following weekend. Team selection will include a number of factors (including tryout results and performance at other contests). Also, you are encouraged to attend tryouts regardless of whether you think you're qualified to be on an elite team. They'll provide extra math practice for you; you can think of them as an extension of the usual 2-hour ARML practices.

Note: we have not yet received guidance on how ARML's region rules will apply for this year. If you're from a location outside of the Bay Area, Northern California, or what we've traditionally called "Wild Wild West" (AZ, ID, MT, NE, parts of NV, NM, ND, SD, WY), you're welcome to come to tryouts, and we'll inform you at a later date whether you can join our teams for these contests or if you should join a team from your local region.

One final thing: I know we promised information on t-shirts and the song contest -- we're still working out the details, so more to come later. :)

Best,

Moor

Preview: fun special events at this weekend's practice

Hi everyone,

We'll have our next practices this weekend, 5pm-7pm Pacific time on both Saturday and Sunday. See the practice website for details: https://math.berkeley.edu/~moorxu/2020ARML/. 

Thanks to everyone who came to practice last weekend. At last weekend's practice, we expanded our breakout sessions to include a "beginner's room" for those of you who are new to ARML and looking for a more guided experience. We also went beyond ARML, with rooms featuring a countdown round from mathleague.org and a guts round from the ASDAN Math Tournament. At future practices, we hope to continue to have a diversity of breakout rooms for participants of different experience levels and different interests.

As a preview for what's coming this weekend, we plan to have another "beginner's room" and to continue to have some content from ARML. In addition, we're planning to hold a couple of new one-time events this week:

• Introduction to Competitive Programming with Nick Wu. (Click link for details.) Nick is sometimes known as the fastest programmer in the world, and he coaches competitive programming in addition to math. This is your chance to learn what programming contests are all about!
• Nick is open to presenting competitive programming content catered to active competitors in future weeks. If you're interested, please fill out this survey.
• Simon Rubinstein-Salzedo will present Cayley's Theorem for counting labeled trees. (See below for abstract). In addition to being known for his favorite factoring trick, Simon is also the instructor at Euler Circle, and this is your chance to check out his teaching style. Many past ARML participants are also Euler Circle students or alumni, and I highly recommend Euler Circle to advanced motivated students -- especially those looking for math camps this summer. More on Euler Circle at the end of this email.
• How many ways are there to make a tree out of n vertices labeled 1 through n? This is the content of Cayley's Theorem, a beautiful theorem in combinatorics with an unreasonably nice answer. We'll state and prove Cayley's Theorem and see a few of the things we can do with it.

I'm excited that we're expanding the focus of this year's practices beyond math competitions and ARML. Going forward, I hope for our online practices to serve as a meeting place for our community to connect over a board range of fun topics. With that in mind, I'd like to invite all of you (especially current students) to host a session in a future week. If you have a topic in mind, or if you don't and are looking for suggestions, please get in touch with me -- I'd love to work with you!

A few quick logistical notes:

• Materials for past practice are now on the practice website. To view those files, please use username=sfba and password=arml.
• As usual, the Zoom link for practice will be sent to this email list approximately 10 minutes before each practice begins. Please log on with your real name, and try to be on time.
• If you aren't on this mailing list (for example, if someone forwarded this email to you, or if you're seeing this on the email blog), you won't receive meeting links. Go to http://mathleague.org/armlapp.php to sign up for the email list.
• See our email archive for a record of any past emails you may have missed. Zoom links won't be posted there though. http://sfbaarml.blogspot.com/.
• As always, we will have a variety of breakout sessions during each practice. The special events listed above will occur on both Saturday and Sunday. If you come on both days, you can experience twice the number of activities!

One final request: If you know of anyone else who might be interested in joining us at our practices (for example, if they want to see one of our special events this weekend), please invite them to join us! We're always happy to have more friends join us at these sessions. Hope to see you this weekend!

Best,

Moor

--------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. Here's a note from Simon about Euler Circle -- looks like fun! Please let me know if you have your own mathematical opportunities that you'd like to share with everyone. :)

Euler Circle is a mathematics institute run by ARML coach Simon Rubinstein-Salzedo, dedicated to teaching college-level mathematics classes to high-school students. (You can see a preview by coming to the session on Cayley's Theorem this weekend.) Through these classes, students get an opportunity to see what mathematics looks like beyond the competition curriculum. While classes are usually held in-person, they are temporarily online while it remains unsafe to meet in person, which means that anyone is welcome to apply. Over the summer, we will be running two classes, which serve as substitutes for the math camps that either aren't happening or are going online this year. In the first session from June 8 through July 10, we will have a class on ring theory and algebraic geometry, and in the second session from July 13 through August 14, we will have a class on proofs from the book, focusing on some of the most beautiful proofs in all of mathematics. Classes meet Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 9:30--11:30 AM Pacific time. These are very ambitious classes, so you should have a solid background in writing proofs at the very least. Some knowledge of abstract algebra is a plus for the ring theory and algebraic geometry class, but very ambitious students who have not seen abstract algebra yet should also be able to follow.

Applications for the ring theory and algebraic geometry class are due May 10th, and applications for the proofs from the book class are due June 14th. Click here to apply.

Today's practice

Zoom link has been sent out, please get in touch with us if you didn't receive it.

Practice updates

Hi everyone,

Thanks everyone for coming to our first online practices last weekend. On Saturday alone, we had more participants than at any past practice, ever. 

Our second weekend of practices will be this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, 5pm-7pm Pacific time on each day. As we did last week, we will have the same content both days, with multiple parallel breakout sessions. If you choose to attend both days, you can attend different breakout sessions each day.

I think of last weekend's practices as a prototype for our online ARML practices. We've shown that we can reproduce the content of our in-person ARML practices, online. I'd like to go beyond that. Since we won't have the full ARML competition at the end of May, we don't have to follow the same recipe as we do in other years. I see this year's ARML practices as an opportunity for us to grow beyond just an ARML team, and to find other ways to do math as a community.

I posed this questions to the coaches, and I'd like to pose it to all of you as well: what would you like to see at practice? We've discussed teaching some new topics, problems from other contests in other formats, mathematical games, and others, in addition to our usual set of ARML content. If you're an advanced student who wants to lead an activity at practice, and share your experience with other students, please get in touch with me! I'd love to see some student-led activities as well.

A few housekeeping updates: 

• The materials that we used at last week's practice have been posted at the practice website: https://math.berkeley.edu/~moorxu/2020ARML/. To access this material, use username=sfba and password=arml. 
• An archive of past team announcements can be found at our email blog: http://sfbaarml.blogspot.com/.
• Going forward, Zoom links for practice will be sent to this email list approximately 10 minutes before the start of each practice -- at 4:50pm Pacific time on each Saturday and Sunday. Zoom links will no longer appear on the email blog.
• If you aren't on our email list (e.g. if someone forwarded this to you, or if you're seeing this on the email blog): please sign up for the email list at http://mathleague.org/armlapp.php.

If you know of anyone else who might want to join us this weekend, please pass this message along -- we'd love to have them. Hope to see you this weekend, and stay safe!

Best,

Moor

[2020 ARML] - Zoom link for today's practice (Sunday 4/5)

Hi everyone, 

Thanks to everyone who came to practice yesterday. We're planning for today's practice to feature the same five breakout rooms as yesterday's practice, so if you were at yesterday's practice, you're welcome to come back and join different breakout rooms this time.

I've gotten feedback that some people are having trouble getting my emails. Our email blog will always have an up-to-date record of the latest news though, so check there if you've missed anything.

http://sfbaarml.blogspot.com/

The Zoom info for today's practice is:

Tim Sanders is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: ARML practice 4/5/20
Time: Apr 5, 2020 05:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/695502112?pwd=ZGxMbFJlYWphZG16TmZGd0Mvd05CUT09

Meeting ID: 695 502 112
Password: 321446

One tap mobile
+13126266799,,695502112# US (Chicago)
+13462487799,,695502112# US (Houston)

Dial by your location
        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
        +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
        +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
        +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
        +1 253 215 8782 US
        +1 301 715 8592 US
Meeting ID: 695 502 112
Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/aozZqNro

Best,

Moor

[2020 ARML] - Zoom link for practice today

Hi everyone,

Our first practice will start at 5pm today! The Zoom link is below. 

https://zoom.us/j/354184834?pwd=dWdRUXYzWXNEL205a3htQWFKQUpyUT09

Please use your real name on Zoom if possible, and see you soon.

By the way, if you've just joined the mailing list, please see http://sfbaarml.blogspot.com/ for past announcements.

Best,

Moor

[2020 ARML] - First ARML Practices this weekend!

Hi everyone,

Welcome to another year of ARML! As you know, this year ARML has been replaced by an online ARML Local contest. In these unusual circumstances and uncertain times, I believe it's more important than ever before that we provide the opportunity to get together every weekend, do math, and socialize with friends.

We plan to have weekly ARML practices on Zoom this spring, every Saturday and Sunday, 5pm-7pm, starting this weekend (today!). We will most likely have a mix of past ARML problems, math talks about miscellaneous topics, and whatever else people recommend. We plan for the Saturday and Sunday practices each weekend to feature similar content, and students are encouraged to come to one of the sessions each weekend. There will be multiple parallel mini-sessions at each practice, and if you choose to attend both sessions, there may be some overlapping material, but you will be able to participate in different breakout sessions the second time. We're still setting everything up for today's practice, and we will follow up with a Zoom invite this afternoon.

A few logistical announcements:

• If you ever miss any announcements, you can view our email archive.
• Join the SFBA ARML facebook page!
  
• Information about practices will be available at https://math.berkeley.edu/~moorxu/2020ARML/ soon.
• Please ignore any information on the team website about payments, travel, permission slips, etc -- no need for any of that this year.

I hope to see many of you at our first online practices this weekend. Over the years, I've come to associate spring with ARML, and I'm excited to get back to the rhythm of regular weekend practices. Even though our practices will have an unusual format, it will be full of friendly familiar faces, and it will feel like spring again.

Best,

Moor

[2019 ARML] - update regarding ARML this year

Hi Everyone,

As many of you have already heard, ARML as we know it is not happening this year. However, it is being replaced with the ARML Local contest that usually occurs in April, and this contest will not require any travel. Other than dealing with the ponderous logistics of collecting fees and permission slips and getting 150 people to Las Vegas, we plan to keep things as close to normal this year as possible. This includes holding practices and organizing teams for the contest that ARML is running. We would like to invite all interested students in grades 6 through 12 to join our community this year; please fill out the information sheet at http://mathleague.org/armlapp.php so we can get you on our mailing list for announcements and practice meeting links.

We will be meeting for practice over Zoom every Saturday and Sunday from 5pm to 7pm Pacific beginning this weekend and continuing until further notice. For now students will be given an opportunity at practice to choose among various breakout rooms to attend. We will cover the same material in both practices each weekend, so students can choose which time suits them best. However, students who are interested in attending both Saturday and Sunday may join different breakout rooms each session for double the mathematical fun! As the season progresses, we will begin to assign students to teams for ARML Local as well as any other scrimmages we can arrange; at this point we may change the practice details so as to get full teams practicing specific material at the same time.

Please note that this is the only email you should expect about ARML from our existing mailing lists; if you wish to receive further notifications, be sure to sign up at http://mathleague.org/armlapp.php so we can get you on our ARML 2020 mailing list. We are looking forward to another successful ARML season and hope you can join us!

-Tim and all the other SFBA and WWW ARML coaches