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