The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

Lamar University will host the Spring 2016 Mathematical Puzzle Programs (MaPP) Challenge, a team-based competition for high school students, on Saturday, April 23 from 11:45 a.m. to 5:00 pm. Each team of six to eight students will be joined by a teacher chaperone that may not assist teams with the puzzles.

Teams will be presented with six puzzles testing their deductive reasoning skills and introducing mathematical concepts such as cryptography, game theory and more. To solve the puzzles and collect solution tokens, the teams will be required to explore and interact with Lamar University’s campus. The team that solves the most puzzles fastest wins the competition.

MaPP has provided a "teaser" puzzle to give students a preview of the challenges they will face. Those that bring a solved puzzle to the event will receive an extra bonus.

Snacks and drinks will be available. Teams must arrange their own transportation and pay an entry fee of $75 per team that goes toward a shirt, snacks and awards for participants. Teams must register by April 2.

MaPP was brought to Lamar University by PJ Couch, assistant professor of the Department of Mathematics, who helped develop the program with his colleagues during his time in grad school at Auburn University. LU offered the program for the first time last year under the former name of Lamar Mathematical Puzzle Challenge.

The program is made possible with the financial sponsorship of the College of Arts and Sciences, the support of associate provost and former dean of the college Brenda Nichols, and the volunteer efforts of the LU Math Club.

Materials can be found at www.mappmath.org. For more information or to sign up a team, contact [email protected], or use the site https://sites.google.com/site/pjcouchlamar/outreach/mapp.