Teams from Maple Street Magnet School for the Arts and Linden Grove Middle School recently competed in the annual Mathcounts competition. 

The national middle school math competition features creative and challenging problems that cover a wide range of math concepts. In the chapter level competition, students race to solve problems in three categories: 

• The Sprint round — Completing 30 problems in 40 minutes with no calculators 
• The Target round — Students have six minutes for sets of two questions, repeated four times. Calculators are allowed. 
• The Team round — The team’s Top 4 players answer 10 questions, working together with calculators. 

Maple Street placed first in the Team round and won the chapter competition, while Linden Grove placed third in the Team round. 

The four Maple Street members of the Team round will advance to the state level. They are: Thomas Shockey, Frankie Goldstein, Robert Strong-Morse, and Julien Chapman. 

“I participated myself, when I was in the eighth grade and I loved it,” said Linden Grove math teacher Grace Wiesner, who coached the team with fellow math teacher Sally Wright and Dr. Patrick Bennett, who is an assistant professor of mathematics at Western Michigan University. 

The Maple Street team was coached by parent Adam Strong-Morse. 

Members of both teams have met weekly since the beginning of the school year to sharpen their math skills. The Top 4 scoring students from each chapter advanced to the state competition and the Top 5 scoring students in the chapter competition received a trophy.