Registration is now open for the Seventh Annual Montana Mathematical Modeling Challenge (MMMC), which takes place Saturday, October 17, through Sunday, October 18, on the Carroll College campus in Helena, Montana. This 24-hour contest gives students the chance to apply the math, data science, statistics, and computer science they learn in the classroom to real-world modeling problems.
In teams of three, students will be presented with open-ended, industry-inspired problems that they can solve using any mathematical, statistical, or computational methods they choose. Teams are allowed to use any inanimate references they can find (books, articles, notes, internet sources, computer code, AI, LLM, stone tablets, etc.) but are not allowed to confer with anyone except their own team members.
The problems are intended to be approachable on several levels: accessible to students in Calculus I and yet challenging even for senior math majors.
Wildfire evacuation in Glacier National Park: Plan how ranger teams could reach remote campgrounds, guide hikers to safety, and estimate evacuation times.
Presidential campaign strategy: Model how campaigns should allocate visits and resources if Electoral College rules changed.
Hospital space planning: Analyze anonymized patient data to recommend how much space hospital services need and which should be located near one another.
Drone search and tagging: Design a strategy for drones to find and tag fictional, fast-moving dinosaurs despite limited battery life and imperfect detection.
Registration
Due to space limitations, organizers may impose a two-team maximum limit per institution, but it does not hurt to ask for more.
Early bird registration deadline: Friday, October 2 (registration fee $100 per team).
Final registration deadline: Friday, October 9 (registration fee $150 per team).
This content is sourced from
Carroll College
. It reflects the author's views and has not been edited by our newsroom. It may have been generated using AI assistance.
