Photo by Samantha Davis Fourth grader Kylie Quade from the “4th Gold” team looks ahead while thinking during a math test in the individual rounds at the Math Masters Competition at Southwest Minnesota State University Thursday morning.

MARSHALL — The annual regional Math Masters competition held on the Southwest Minnesota State University campus recorded its largest turnout on Thursday.

A total of 260 students competed at SMSU, while 6,000 students competed at over more than 60 different sites in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

“I have really enjoyed coming here,” Dawson-Boyd Elementary School Principal Amy Hiedeman said. “It’s just fun to be together and it’s a nice group. They work well together.”

In conjunction with SMSU, various schools like Tracy-Milroy-Balaton, Murray County Central, Worthington, Sleepy Eye, Windom, Dawson-Boyd, Hancock and more sent a team of students that have practiced over the months to Math Masters.

The event goes through several individual and team rounds.

“They have a fact drill, which is basically arithmetic like multiplication, then there are three individual rounds that talk about things from percentages to statistics, they’re word problems,” Math Masters coordinator and SMSU Professor of Mathematics Dr. Heather Moreland said. “They do a tie breaker, because we always end up with some ties. Then, they go through team rounds … Then we have individual awards, and we have team awards.”

Specifically, the P/E Gymnasium at SMSU was filled with round tables of students of 100 sixth graders, 100 fifth graders and 60 fourth graders.

Math Masters, which takes place through several regions across Minnesota and surrounding states, began as just a fifth-grade competition in 1989. It expanded to include sixth graders in 1995, and fourth grade in 2022.

“The opportunity to give some of our kids who excel at math the opportunity to showcase their skills to come and compete,” Hiedeman said regarding what she enjoys about the event, who is also the math coach for the Dawson-Boyd team. “I was a mathlete back in the day, so I volunteer and we practice twice a week from January until now … It’s fun.”

Hiedeman also mentioned that her team of students thoroughly enjoy preparing for and partaking in the competition when it comes around each year.

“I remember going to math competitions, and I learned some of my math skills in practice going for those,” Heideman said. “I always tell the kids a story that I learned how to do square root on the bus on the way to competition.”

The students eagerly flipped over their math tests at the start of each new round, with the gym becoming silent.

The three individual rounds and tie breaker were 10 minutes each, while the three team rounds were 15 minutes. Fellow faculty, teachers and volunteers also worked the event like handing out and grading tests.

With funds received through Math Masters, Moreland also has plans in the making to create another student education engagement event.

“We’ve been accumulating those funds now for a few years, and we’re using it to start a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) symposium series on campus,” Moreland said. “The funding (will help) to bring in a nationally recognized speaker who will come to campus and interact, not only in the symposium, but interact with various groups of students. That is starting this year in April.”

The students continued on with their tests, conversing with one another during breaks, and were given awards at the end, marking another successful year of Math Masters.

“This event, which is great for the community, is then also supporting another event that is good for the Marshall community, SMSU, our students and everything,” Moreland said.