Math Madness Team Event

100% Online, entering its 6th season as a joint initiative between American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) and AreteLabs, Math Madness is emerging as one of the premiere math competition events in the United States, soon to be world-wide. In 2017, well over 500 schools and 10,000 students from across the country competed in the online league, tournament and championship and the feedback continues to be overwhelmingly positive. Teachers and students love this experience. Indeed, nearly every day AreteLabs receives an email about a math team ballooning in size, peer dynamics transforming, or students inspired toward the mastery of mathematics. It is simply an amazing chance for a math team or class to improve its skill, cohesion, and contentment.  

Math Madness takes place in the fall with one event held for high school teams (9th-12th), one for middle school teams (6th-8th), and one for elementary school teams (3rd-5th). The structure of the event is as follows:

Sep 23 - Sep 29:   Practice Round

Sept 30 - Oct 6:     Collaboration Round (Official Season begins)

Oct 7 - Oct 13:       Collaboration Round

Oct 14 - Oct 20:     Qualifying Round

Oct 21 - Oct 27:     Qualifying Round (Last week to sign up)

Oct 28 - Nov 3:       Bracket Round I

Nov 4 - Nov 10:       Bracket Round II

Nov 11 - Nov 17:     Bracket Round III

Nov 18 - Nov 24:     OFF for Thanksgiving

Nov 25 - Dec 1:       Bracket Round IV

Dec 2 - Dec 8:         Bracket Round V

Dec 9 - Dec 15:       Championship

The system arranges all matches for all rounds. Each match involves 2 teams and each round lasts 1 week. All rounds begin Sunday and end Saturday. A team can compete at any time during a given round. It can change its time to play during the round and from round to round, as well as the players it fields. In addition, a team can opt out of any round that might conflict with its school schedule, keeping the commitment required to participate in the event to a minimum. In fact, the only 2 responsibilities of a teacher throughout the entire season are to add students to the team and choose the time to play each round, simple.

If a team chooses the same time to play as its opponent, the match is live with team score updating in real time. To add to the excitement, individuals from opposing teams are matched together evenly based on past performance, a second level of competition. If teams cannot find a common time to compete, then each team plays at a time convenient for it, with the winner decided after both teams have played. In this case, students square up against their personal best.

All matches are 30 minutes in length and all students from the same team must play under the supervision of their teacher, simultaneously and individually. Thus, each student must have separate access to a computer/tablet and the internet. A team must field a minimum of 5 players per match but a maximum team size is not imposed. When the match starts, all team members logged into the AreteLabs website are automatically redirected to the Match Arena where a scoreboard is displayed as well as a question area. Each match includes 7-8 multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank questions aligned with traditional AMC content, AMC 10/12 for the high school event and AMC 8 for the middle school event, with a wide spread of difficulty to engage students of all abilities. A student receives 1 point for each question answered correctly. Team score is calculated by summing the top 5 individual scores of the given team. Students are not restricted to a specific time length for answering any given question. Once the match is over, questions and solutions are immediately furnished to each team to stimulate a unique teaching and learning opportunity.

As the season progresses, rankings of the top 10% of individuals and teams are published to highlight achievement and to help members of the greater community measure their own effort and progress. With data taken from the practice round, teams are matched for subsequent rounds, first by skill so that the competition is even and then by common time availability so that teams can play live where possible. Data from the 2 qualifying rounds are used to determine bracket assignments. The top 64 teams are assigned to the Title bracket. Remaining teams are then evenly placed in additional brackets based on team size, with all teams competing in a bracket. Within each bracket, teams are sorted by skill and seeded accordingly, following NCAA March Madness protocol.

The two collaboration rounds are meant to be informal. They are the only rounds where students do not play individually. Instead, teachers are asked to divide their team into mini-teams of no more than 3 students and no less than 2, assigning 1 student to log in and input answers on behalf of the mini-team. The members of each mini-team are free to discuss each question together.

Those teams that are eliminated from a bracket can nonetheless extend their season by opting in to play against other similarly situated teams in weekly matches automatically arranged by the system. In addition, a teacher can separately challenge another team to a match or divide his/her team into multiple teams that play against each other. Content from the present season and past seasons is made available to fuel such additional competition activity. Thus, all teams are guaranteed 10 rounds of play with the flexibility to opt out as needed.

To participate, a teacher must (1) activate a free account (click here), (2) create a team once inside the account by clicking the "+Team" button, and then (3) register that team on the Events page, selecting "High", "Middle" or "Elementary" first depending on your team's level. A teacher can add as many students to the team as desired throughout the season, with each student assigned a separate account. Unique student ID information is not required nor does AreteLabs utilize student or teacher data in any way. Moreover, students are free to conceal their identity. Note that upon request we will push Math Madness question sets from years prior to a newly activated account so that a teacher can both review content appropriateness as well as create a live match for students to better determine potential interest in the core experience. See contact information below if interested.

2018 Math Madness opens the week of September 23rd with the optional practice round, the official season commencing the week of September 30th and running through the end of the fall. The week of Thanksgiving is the only off-week. While registration by September 21st is encouraged, the period to register will remain open until October 28th. Teams that register late simply miss the intervening rounds. Once registered, please review Math Madness in more detail by clicking "Math Madness" in the dropdown at the top/right of the account and then selecting the About tab. Note that while an email with an invoice attached to it will automatically be emailed to you upon registration, you may also download a copy of your invoice on your Events page. Payment by check is politely requested although a credit card purchase can be arranged if there is no alternative. In the pricing area below, a player is defined as an individual student who competes at least once during the event. Prices listed (scroll down) are for the entire team to play for the entire season. Prices for the Elementary event are lower than those cited below: \($95\) for 5-10 player teams and \($165\) for unlimited players. Price accommodation is available upon request and as needed. Please do not hesitate to send an email to timothy@aretelabs.com with any questions or call 312-952-0436. We are happy to walk teachers through the process as we are committed to providing exemplary customer support, at sign-up and during the entire season. 

Thank you and welcome to Math Madness! . . .