Final team meeting and afterparty on Sunday!

Hi everyone,

I'd like to invite everyone to our final team meeting and afterparty on Sunday, June 13, 4pm-7pm Pacific time. At this event, we'll present some results, (virtually) hand out some team awards, and recognize the hard work that all of you have put in this season. In the theme of the activities that we had at each practice this year, we'll once again conclude with a couple hours of fun activities and games to close out the season.

I'm proud of what we've accomplished this ARML season. Everyone involved in our organization -- students, parents, coaches, student leaders, proctors, power graders, partner organizations... we needed all of you to make this season a success. Despite all of the challenges of doing practices and competitions online over the past few months, we've built a strong community together. Thank you all for the time that you've devoted this spring!

Best,

Moor

P.S. Many of you will hopefully receive your team t-shirts today or tomorrow. If your shirt shows up before Sunday's meeting, please wear it to the afterparty! :)

ARML Contest Logistics (Part 1)

Dear all,

I have a couple of notes for you that you need to be aware of going into Saturday's ARML contest.  More information will be coming later--we're still assembling a few things that you'll need.

First, your call time for Saturday is 12:30pm Pacific Time.  Each team will have a separate Zoom room, and you'll need to report to your Zoom room at that time.  I will send the Zoom links out later.  If you are late and we are unable to contact you, we may need to replace you with an alternate.  If you know that you will be late for some reason (for example, taking the SAT that morning), you must notify us ahead of time.  The contest will begin at 1pm; the half hour in between will give us time to get organized.

Second, everyone MUST read the ARML competitor instructions in their entirety.  At the end of that document is a link to a form on which you acknowledge that you have read and will follow the instructions.  Filling out this form before the contest is absolutely mandatory.  If you do not fill out the rules acknowledgement form, you and your entire team may be disqualified.

Third, you must also read and ensure you understand the instructions for submitting Power Round solutions, and be prepared to follow them on Saturday.  Note that this will involve some advance preparation.  You will also be expected to familiarize yourself with the ARML mathematical conventions, especially if this is your first year at ARML.

Finally, note that several places in those instructions refer to your team number and relay position.  We will be sending that information out later in the week.

Expect another email from me in the next day or so with Zoom links, team numbers and ID's, and any other follow-ups that come up in that time.

--Silas

Practice today 5/29

Hi everyone, 

Our next and final ARML practice of the season will be today, Saturday, May 29, 4pm-7pm Pacific time. As always, you can find the practice schedule at https://math.berkeley.edu/~moorxu/2021ARML. Like usual, the Zoom link for this practice will be sent to this email list approximately 10 minutes before the start of practice.

Since this is the final practice of the season, please make an extra effort to attend practice, and to come on time! Your team needs you for this final practice. If you must miss practice, please fill out the Practice Absence Form on the website before practice, with a good reason.

This is also a good time to review ARML's participant guides for this year's online competition. 

• Competitor Instructions
• Power Round Submission Instructions
• ARML Conventions

In particular, we will do a power round at practice today. Please review the submission instructions before practice. In particular, you should download the Adobe Scan app onto your phone and familiarize yourself with it before practice.

As a reminder, the ARML competition will be on the afternoon of Saturday June 5, one week from today. We will host a final team meeting, awards ceremony, and afterparty with activities on June 13, and we'll have more information about that soon. Save the date!

A few logistical reminders and links:

• Information about practices, including a full practice and tryout schedule, is available at our practice website.
• Practice materials from last weekend's practice are now also available at the practice website. Use username=sfba and password=arml to access these materials. 
• If you ever miss any announcements, you can view our email archive.
  
• Students are encouraged to join our social Discord server.
• Please let us know if you have any questions. Looking forward to seeing everyone at practice this weekend!

Best,

Moor

Practice on Saturday 5/22

Hi everyone, 

Our next ARML practice will be on Saturday, May 22, 4pm-7pm Pacific time. As always, you can find the practice schedule at https://math.berkeley.edu/~moorxu/2021ARML. Like usual, the Zoom link for this practice will be sent to this email list approximately 10 minutes before the start of practice.

At this practice, we will be participating in FARML -- an informal scrimmage against other teams across the country. Please make an extra effort to come on time! As a reminder, we take attendance seriously. If you can't make it to practice on a particular day, fill out the Practice Absence Form on the website before that practice, with a good reason. Unexcused absences may negatively affect placement on elite teams or cause you to be an alternate at the competition.

We also encourage everyone to check out the Competitor Instructions and ARML Conventions on ARML's website before FARML.

We are still able to add a few people to our teams this year, so if you know anyone who might want to join us, please direct them to sign up and join our team.

As a reminder, Po-Shen Loh is giving a talk for parents at 3pm on Saturday, shortly before practice. To register for his talk, use the Zoom registration link at the bottom of the practice website, or see my previous email.

A few logistical reminders and links:

• Information about practices, including a full practice and tryout schedule, is available at our practice website.
• Practice materials from last weekend's practice are now also available at the practice website. Use username=sfba and password=arml to access these materials. 
• If you ever miss any announcements, you can view our email archive.
  
• Students are encouraged to join our social Discord server.
• Please let us know if you have any questions. Looking forward to seeing everyone at practice this weekend!

Best,

Moor

Talk for Parents by Prof. Po-Shen Loh on Saturday 5/22

Hi everyone,

Prof. Po-Shen Loh has agreed to give a talk for parents on our teams and the surrounding region on Saturday 5/22, 3:00-4:30pm PDT, immediately preceding our practice this Saturday (which remains 4pm-7pm Pacific time, as usual). He is a mathematics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, founder of NOVID, Expii, and the Daily Challenge, and national coach of the USA International Mathematics Olympiad team.

One of my personal goals for our ARML team is to develop it into a hub not just for ARML, but for all sorts of opportunities in the region. That's one reason for the activities in the final hour of practice every weekend. I've really enjoyed working with students and coaches from a diverse set of math organizations such as AlphaStar, AMT, BMT, Euler Circle, mathleague.org, MMT, NanoMath, SMT, etc to create a wide range of activities, including some fun activities this weekend. Prof. Loh's talk is a natural addition to this lineup of activities.

While most of our activities have been for students, I recognize that parents play an important role in our ecosystem as well. The challenges of supporting remote learning has also made this an especially difficult year for many parents. That's why when Prof. Loh and I started brainstorming about ways to get him involved with our team, it was natural to set up a talk for parents. We hope that this topic will be helpful for you. 

And in the theme of our team being a hub for opportunities, Prof. Loh and I didn't want to limit this talk to only parents from our ARML teams. Parents everywhere can attend this talk as well. Feel free to forward this email to anyone who you think might benefit, and invite them to spread the word! 

To register for the event, please use the Zoom registration link at the bottom of this email. Note that this is the Zoom link for Prof. Loh's talk, not for practice on Saturday -- as usual, we will follow up with an email later in the week regarding this weekend's practice.

While I have your attention, a few logistical notes for our team:

• Information about practices, including a full practice and tryout schedule, is available at our practice website.
• Practice materials from last weekend's practice are now also available at the practice website. Use username=sfba and password=arml to access these materials.
• We will participate in FARML at the next practice, so please make an extra effort to come on time at 4pm Pacific time. If you need to miss a practice, fill out the Practice Absence Form on the practice website.
• If you want to unsubscribe from this email list, click on the link in the footer of this email.

Best,

Moor

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

Given the many risks and opportunities that living online our children and young people are facing today, how can parents actually help kids build intellectual creativity? This time, Prof. Po-Shen Loh is going to share his first-hand experience of how teachers and parents can cultivate the ability of creativity, especially through math learning.

This livestream consists of a 60 min talk by Prof. Loh and a 30 min open Q&A session. Bring any of your concerns about education and math learning to us. We are looking forward to meeting you!

Agenda:
60 min
· What is intellectual creativity
· Why is intellectual creativity essential to self-actualization
· How to help your children build this ability
· How does competition math help to build the ability of creative thinking
30 min
· Open Q&A

Zoom registration:
You are invited to a Zoom meeting.
When: May 22, 2021 03:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEpduGtqj8jGNct4pxdyAqANfdb-7_46ukv
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

URGENT: T-shirt info needed; extra shirt orders

Dear all,

T-shirt colors were chosen at practice today, and we are working to get the order to the printer in time to send you your t-shirts before the ARML competition.  In order to do that, we need to know everyone's shirt size, and an address we can mail your t-shirt to.

Everyone needs to fill out this form by Noon Pacific Time on Tuesday, May 18th.  If you don't, you may not get a t-shirt.

As part of your registration fee for ARML, you will receive one t-shirt in your team's color, in the size you request on the form above.  You may also, if you wish, purchase additional shirts in sizes and colors of your choice.  You can do so here, and the deadline to order extra shirts is midnight on Wednesday, May 19th.  To be clear, this is only for extra shirts, not the one included in your registration fee--the first form is for that one.

If you weren't at today's practice, the shirt designs that were chosen were the "Roadrunner" for Wild Wild West, and the "Hi Score" design for SFBA/NorCal.  Each team chose a team name and a shirt color; the first form above will tell you how that translates to the placeholder fruit-based team names that we used last week.

--Silas

ARML practice this Sunday May 16

Hi everyone, 

Our next ARML practice will be on Sunday, May 16, 4pm-7pm Pacific time. Please note that this is a *Sunday* practice. As always, you can find the practice schedule at https://math.berkeley.edu/~moorxu/2021ARML. Like usual, the Zoom link for this practice will be sent to this email list approximately 10 minutes before the start of practice.

As a reminder, now that everyone participating in ARML on June 5 has been assigned to a team, we take attendance seriously. Please make the effort to come to practice. We understand that sometimes there are unavoidable scheduling conflicts; if you can't make it to practice on a particular day, fill out the Practice Absence Form on the website before that practice, with a good reason. Unexcused absences may negatively affect placement on elite teams or cause you to be an alternate at the competition.

With that said, everyone is welcome to come to practice, whether you're on our team or otherwise. If you aren't able to join us for the competition on June 5 and are not on one of our teams, you're still welcome to come to practice! We'll arrange for you to work with one of our teams during practice. As always, we encourage you to help us spread the word -- if you know anyone who might want to join us at practices, please direct them to join our mailing list.

A few logistical reminders and links:

• Information about practices, including a full practice and tryout schedule, is available at our practice website.
• Practice materials from last weekend's practice are now also available at the practice website. Use username=sfba and password=arml to access these materials. 
• If you ever miss any announcements, you can view our email archive.
• Students are encouraged to join our social Discord server.
• If you want to unsubscribe from this email list, please reply to me and I'll remove you.
• Please let us know if you have any questions. Looking forward to seeing everyone at practice this weekend!

Best,

Moor

T-shirt design surveys

Dear all,

Voting is now open for t-shirt designs!

• If you are on the SFBA/NorCal team, vote here.
• If you are on the Wild Wild West team, vote here.

Each of those forms contains a link to images of the designs.  The background colors in each design are placeholders; we will determine the background colors after voting closes, possibly involving a second vote.  For now, you are just voting on the artwork to go on the shirt.

Voting will close at noon Pacific Time on Tuesday, May 11th.

--Silas

ARML practice this Saturday May 8

Hi everyone, 

Our next ARML practice will be on Saturday, May 8, 4pm-7pm Pacific time. As always, you can find the practice schedule at https://math.berkeley.edu/~moorxu/2021ARML. Like usual, the Zoom link for this practice will be sent to this email list approximately 10 minutes before the start of practice.

Practice materials from past practices can also be found at the practice website, with the following username and password:
Username: sfba
Password: arml

ARML is a team activity, and as such, it is really important that everyone come to practice whenever possible -- the team depends on everyone's active participation. If you can't make it to practice on a particular day, fill out the Practice Absence Form on the website before that practice, with a good reason. Unexcused absences may negatively affect placement on elite teams or cause you to be an alternate at the competition. (This year, practice attendance will only be tracked starting from this week's practice - don't worry if you just found out about ARML and missed the first couple practices.)

As a reminder, even though team placements will be announced later this week, everyone is welcome to come to our practices, regardless of whether you are on a team to compete at the competition on June 5. No fees are required if you only want to attend practices. If you know anyone who might want to join us at practices, please direct them to join our mailing list.

This year, we have reserved the final hour of most practices for a mix of math and social activities. The goal is to make practice more engaging and better simulate the serendipity of interactions at in-person practices. If you have any suggestions for activities (or especially if you want to lead one), please reach out and let us know!

A few logistical reminders and links:

• Information about practices, including a full practice and tryout schedule, is available at our practice website.
• Practice materials from last weekend's practice are now also available at the practice website.
• If you ever miss any announcements, you can view our email archive.
• In preparation for relay rounds at practice, join our Discord server.
• If you want to unsubscribe from this email list, please reply to me and I'll remove you.
• Please let us know if you have any questions. Looking forward to seeing everyone at practice this weekend!

Best,

Moor

SFBA/NorCal and Wild Wild West ARML Roster: Update

Dear all,

Below is the updated roster for the SFBA/NorCal and Wild Wild West ARML teams.  Once again, please check to make sure your name appears on this list, especially if you were mistakenly left off the list in my last email.

This list reflects who we currently believe will be attending the ARML competition on Saturday, June 5th.  We will be placing the students on this list onto teams in the next few days.  Here is what you need to do right now:

• If you are on the list and will attend ARML on June 5th, no action is needed.
• If you are on the list and will NOT attend ARML, please inform the coaches immediately.  We do not want to place you on a team and then leave that team shorthanded when you don't show up.
• If you are not on the list and will not attend ARML, no action is needed.  You may continue attending practices if you wish.
• If you are not on the list and believe you have signed up and paid for ARML, please contact the coaching staff immediately.
• If you aren't on the list, and you paid in the last day or two, it's possible the roster just hasn't been updated; don't panic, but contact us anyway to check.

If you are not on the list, haven't paid, but want to attend ARML, please contact the coaching staff immediately.  We can probably still add some people to the roster, but we plan to finalize our teams in the next couple of days.  This also goes if you have any friends or classmates who are interested in joining--have them contact us!

By the way, don't forget the deadline to submit t-shirt designs is Monday!

--Silas

Wild Wild West ARML 2021 Roster

[redacted]

SFBA/NorCal ARML 2021 Roster

[redacted]