July 18, 2025

We began the day with an energetic and strategic lecture led by one of our camp directors, Dr. Rui. In this fast-paced game, each camper was assigned one of the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, or 128. These powers of 2 could be combined to create any number from 1 to 255. Dr. Rui would announce a target number, and students had 10 seconds to decide - mentally and silently - whether their number was part of the sum. If so, they stood; if not, they remained seated.

There were no calculators, no scratch paper, and absolutely no talking allowed. “If you talk, you lose a point,” Dr. Hu reminded everyone firmly. Only each student’s final position at the end of the countdown was counted.

Between rounds, teams were allowed to quietly trade numbers and refine their strategies. Some campers approached it using binary reasoning; others thought in terms of subtraction or place value. The activity emphasized clarity of thought under pressure and the importance of teamwork. Once again, Team 7 came out on top, which continued their impressive streak in this week’s challenges.

After Dr. Rui’s talk, Victor Barranca of Swarthmore College delivered a lively lecture on applied mathematics, returning to our program after a well-received debut last summer. He began with a deceptively simple question: “What is mathematics?” After gathering a few student responses, Professor Barranca offered his own definition:

Mathematics is the study of patterns using abstraction.

He then explored how these patterns appear not only in numbers but also in shapes, physical objects, and even our perception. A circle, for example, can model a tabletop, a water bottle, or a wheel. He also showed how the brain interprets visual information using mathematical principles. Students were introduced to illusions such as the Hermann grid and binocular rivalry, where perception flips between competing images. Mathematical models of these phenomena, he explained, have contributed to advances in artificial intelligence, neural networks, and artificial vision.

He closed with a classic probability puzzle: the Birthday Problem. Despite sounding simple, the problem often surprises people. In a group of just 23 people, there is a better than 50% chance that two will share a birthday. Professor Barranca used this example to show how intuition can mislead us and how mathematics helps clarify and correct our assumptions.

It was a fascinating and wide-ranging talk that reminded us mathematics is not only practical and powerful but also deeply connected to how we experience the world.


Our afternoon featured an engaging and interactive lecture by Dr. Mourya Narasareddygari of Rider College, who introduced students to the fundamentals of computer science and coding. She emphasized that coding is simply about giving clear, step-by-step instructions to a computer, whether to build a game, an app, or a robot.

To illustrate this, Dr. Narasareddygari led a fun “human robot” activity. Students gave instructions to classmates acting as robots and quickly discovered how easily things can go wrong when directions are vague. Even brushing your teeth, as it turns out, requires careful sequencing.

She introduced key concepts such as loops, which repeat instructions, and conditionals, which allow a program to make decisions. Students then used Scratch to build a simple game where a monkey sprite earns points by catching bananas. Along the way, they explored motion blocks, variables, and the X-Y coordinate system. When the game did not work as expected, several students stepped in to help debug the code.

Dr. Narasareddygari left students with a lasting insight. Computers cannot read our minds. Clear thinking and attention to detail are essential to writing good code.