WEST ORANGE, NJ - West Orange students continue to excel in mathematics competitions. Students at Edison Middle School took home the first, second, and third place trophies from the Essex County Challenge 24 competition, held June 6 at Millburn Middle School.
The Edison students, former students at Redwood Elementary School, participated along with their Redwood contemporaries.
Millions of students in more than 20 countries have participated in the Challenge 24 Competition since its inception in 1988. Using mental math, verbal and interpersonal skills, students compete as individuals and as teams to use combinations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to reach the number 24, emphasizing the process over the answer. Players need to find out how four given integers can be combined in simple arithmetic operations (+, -, x, /) to reach the number 24. Sounds easy? Well, it gets harder when you’re going against three other people and speed counts.
The West Orange team, consisting of four students from Redwood Elementary School and four students from Edison Middle School, trained for months for the competition, with all West Orange participants moving on to the semifinals and three of the four EMS students taking top honors. Sarah Nicolaescu won first place, Max Lipton placed second, and another Edison student (who did not want to be identified) took third.
These results were made possible by the significant time and support given by both the advisors from Edison (Mrs. Jannah and Mrs. Shipitofsky) and Redwood (Mrs. Beutel and Mrs. Lovejoy) as well as the students’ commitment to excellence.
