July 12, 2025

We all arrived on campus today for the beginning of our program. Participants came from China, Canada, Thailand, the United States, and assorted other countries. If you are like me, you were a little nervous, but also very excited to begin your adventure with us.

After checking in and walking around campus a bit, we all gathered in the Student Center for our opening evening dinner. Adam Raichel, our Jack of all trades, made some comments about the high caliber of students attending our program and the difficulty of our contests. Our supervisor of counselors, John Hagen, spoke briefly about the care your children will be given while with us. John has worked all year making sure that everything runs smoothly. John is always available to parents for any questions about rooms and counselors. Both Adam and John are former students of mine who have been helping me with Math League for many years.

We had a special event at our opening dinner. One of our participants volunteered (with a little encouragement from me) to attempt the record for reciting many of the digits of pi from memory in one minute. As I’m sure most of you know, pi is an irrational number whose decimal expansion never ends and never has a permanently repeating pattern. This means that memorizing many digits in the decimal expansion of pi is quite challenging. The world’s record for reciting these digits in one minute was set by 10-year-old Alberto Davila Aragon earlier this year. Believe it or not (Ripley, are you listening?), he recited 280 digits of pi in one minute! Hmm—I wonder who had the honor of checking his accuracy? While no world record was set tonight, a record for Math League was. Our participant was able to recite 80 digits of pi in 54 seconds. Since this was the first time any of our participants ever attempted this feat, it certainly was a record for us.

After dinner, all our staff and participants walked over to the Decker Social Space for our evening activities. Earlier in the day, Adam introduced our counselors to some improv games which they in turn taught to our participants. These games give our students a chance to get acquainted with one another through some fun games. In these games, the team members form a circle and then play some games reminiscent of Simon Says. They sometimes are required to do silly things that make us all laugh together. Tonight, one of our counselors taught one team a game I’d never seen before: slow-motion tag. Watching the students trying to avoid the slow-moving person who was “it” was hilarious. These games are a great way to release tensions and begin making friends.

Tomorrow’s activities begin with two talks by Steven Miller of Williams College. I have listened to Professor Miller speak to our students many times in the past; I can assure you that his talks will be very interesting, enjoyable, and educational. After Lunch, Paul Ellis will explain the Four Numbers Game to our students. Professor Ellis has been a frequent speaker at our summer program and is always entertaining and informative.

Our first contest round will be held in Bliss Hall Sunday afternoon after Professor Ellis’ talk. We like to begin with the Team Round since this gives the students a chance to work together on some challenging questions.

Tomorrow night will be the first night of our two-evening talent show. About 30 participants have offered to perform and entertain us. My man Adam will emcee this show as usual. Adam regularly hosts and performs at improv shows in California.