ARML 2015
by djmathman, Jun 2, 2015, 2:39 AM
Darn I guess I'm in the minority when I say that this was my first ARML ever... as a senior in high school. Oh well. Better late than never! 
Like other people, I'll post in bold the usernames of all the AoPSers I met/reunited with over the weekend.
Like other people, I'll post in bold the usernames of all the AoPSers I met/reunited with over the weekend.
- FRIDAY: Went to school in the morning, left around 10:20 AM. I carpooled with someone else from my team. The ride wasn't too interesting, but it was made better by the fact that he (a 6th or 7th grader) was very intrigued by the Guts Round problems I gave him. (Nono, not HMMT Guts Round - the contest I made for school!
)
Arrived at Penn State probably sometime around 3:50 PM. I see a bunch of kids playing basketball, of which I have no interest in joining (oops athletics is hard). While I'm waiting for keys, I stumble upon psloh; this is the first time we've met since I committed to CMU last month. Around this time, I meet ahaanomegas for the first time. Then BCA arrives, and I become reunited with BOGTRO, yugrey, and fermat007 (darn I hadn't seen them since, like, PUMaC). At this time I think I also meet pi37 again and ksun48 for the first time.
At this point our keys arrive - finally. My carpool-mate and I settle into our dorms. I try a Mathematical Reflections geometry at this point while my phone is charging and subsequently die. Man, even the Junior level problems are hard.
Our partial team then splits for dinner. A few of us walk down to the Underground to eat. On our return trip, I recognize MathKirby from AMSP and we have a discussion about life which leads into the USAMO. The person who he's walking with gradually joins the convo at this point, and it seems we have a connection despite the fact that I actually don't know who this person is. Turns out he's ABCDE. Whoops. I guess it's cool to meet and converse with another NIMO problem writer in person finally. (Sorry v_Enhance, I only saw you at PUMaC for like five seconds - not sure if that counts.)
After that I hang out for a while before listening to the Song Contest. Man, this is funny stuff. Along the way, I have a long conversation with yugrey about math and USAMO and what-not and say hi to superpi83. I subsequently head back to dorms, flail with the MR problem once again, and go to sleep.
- SATURDAY: My roommate and I arrive at breakfast late (darn) so we are forced to wait in a long line. Oops. Anyway this cuts into the time we have to do stuff. While in line to dispense of our materials and head out, I meet nsun48. I haven't seen him in two years; his deep voice surprises me greatly. Rawr.
Then comes the actual competition. I already described most of the math in my post here, so I'll describe more of the antics surrounding the math. Our team takes a different route to get to the Team/Power building, so in effect we see no other teams for 10 minutes. Fortunately, we do arrive at the site on time. We take team and subsequently fail (15 whoo!). I probably should have spent time on easier problems than T10, but oh well. Power is annoying as well, although apparently we did well on this considering our team's overall placement, which is a bit weird.
We then take the long hike to Pegula for all the other festivities. I realize before individuals start that I am sitting right in front of the great zman. I didn't introduce myself for it would probably have been too awkward, but being near his presence is more than enough to strike awe. After individuals, I communicate with forthegreatergood and actually get the chance to talk with him for a nontrivial amount of time. (For comparison, in PUMaC 2013 we meet for 3 seconds, in Splash 2014 we tried to meet up and failed because phones are hard to work, and in PUMaC 2014 we talked but not at length.) Oh right - I also caught up with Iggy Iguana again. Can't forget that!
Relays were relays, not much to say about those except for the fact that i screwed up R2-3 for some reason. In terms of Super Relay, we somehow got the answer at the end of the 10 minutes. As the 8th man, I receive an incorrect answer from position 9 and no answer from position 7 and still managed to get the right
and 
. Yay!
Then come tiebreaks. My goal coming into ARML was to qualify for this round, and I did! I recognize the names of several AoPSers during this time as they are called down, including Alex Song and va2010. Once I am called down, I am initially confused but end up finding my place. Tiebreaks are intense
I guess #1 would be doable if I had remembered that 
could be negative - I would have probably ate up most of the ten minutes (which still would not have been good enough for top 20 considering that BOGTRO got 17th after solving the problem in only a minute and a half) but still. At least I got #2 - eventually. I guess this puts me at around 40th or so place? (If that is the case, then I would have scored ~40th on both USAMO and ARML - consistency!)
Finally, we have the awards ceremony. I am called down for being an individual high scorer - as I return, I cross paths with AkshajK. I think we mutually recognize each other, but the interaction is slightly awkward so I don't really know. Top 20 are announced - I recognize a few AoPSers including Wolstenholme and Seedleaf in the teens and am especially (pleasantly!) surprised to hear MSTang at second. During this time, droid347, SHARKYBOY, and DrMath all approach me under the assumption that I am djmathman (fortunately their assumption is correct) and we have a somewhat-awkward-but-not-really conversation.
I then proceed back to my dorm. Before leaving, I make sure to open the "ARML 2015 Discussion Thread" because why not. It takes us a while to get settled (missing keys everywhere!) but at around 6:00 PM we exit the campus of Pennsylvania State University, putting the cap on both a great weekend and an awesome five years of being a high school math contest participant.
and 
.
could be negative - I would have probably ate up most of the ten minutes (which still would not have been good enough for top 20 considering that BOGTRO got 17th after solving the problem in only a minute and a half) but still. At least I got #2 - eventually. I guess this puts me at around 40th or so place? (If that is the case, then I would have scored ~40th on both USAMO and ARML - consistency!)
April 2025
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