Rocket City Math League (RCML) is the only exclusively student-run international mathematics competition in the United States. Run by students at Virgil I. Grissom High School in Huntsville, Alabama

Huntsville, Alabama

Huntsville is a city located primarily in Madison County in the central part of the far northern region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Huntsville is the county seat of Madison County. The city extends west into neighboring Limestone County. Huntsville's population was 180,105 as of the 2010 Census....

, RCML gets its name from Huntsville's nickname as the "Rocket City". RCML was co-founded in 2001 by Ashrit Kamireddi and Sharat Bhat and has been annually sponsored by the Mu Alpha Theta

Mu Alpha Theta

Mu Alpha Theta is a United States mathematics honor society for high schools and two-year colleges. It has over 89,000 student members in more than 1,800 schools worldwide. Its main goals are to inspire keen interest in mathematics, develop strong scholarship in the subject, and promote the...

 Math Honor Society. The competition consists of 3 individual rounds and a team round that was added in 2008. It is divided into 5 divisions named for NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 programs: Explorer (pre-algebra), Mercury

Project Mercury

In January 1960 NASA awarded Western Electric Company a contract for the Mercury tracking network. The value of the contract was over $33 million. Also in January, McDonnell delivered the first production-type Mercury spacecraft, less than a year after award of the formal contract. On February 12,...

 (algebra I), Gemini

Project Gemini

Project Gemini was the second human spaceflight program of NASA, the civilian space agency of the United States government. Project Gemini was conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, with ten manned flights occurring in 1965 and 1966....

 (geometry), Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 (algebra II), and Discovery

Space Shuttle Discovery

Space Shuttle Discovery is one of the retired orbiters of the Space Shuttle program of NASA, the space agency of the United States, and was operational from its maiden flight, STS-41-D on August 30, 1984, until its final landing during STS-133 on March 9, 2011...

(comprehensive).

Individual rounds

Each of the 3 individual rounds consists of a 12 question test with a 45 minute time limit. Out of the 12 questions, there are four 1-point questions, four 2-point questions, three 3-point questions, and one 4-point question, with the more difficult questions having larger point values. The maximum score on an individual test is 25, and individual tests often contain many interesting space-themed questions.

Team round

The team round is divided into a senior division and a junior division that take separate tests for the team round. It consists of a 15 question test with a 30 minute time limit, in which team members work together to get as many correct answers as possible. Out of the 15 questions, there are five 1-point questions, four 2-point questions, three 3-point questions, two 4-point questions, and one 5-point question, making the maximum score on the team test a 35.

External links

• http://www.mualphatheta.org/Contests/RocketCity.aspx
• http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Wiki/index.php/Rocket_City_Math_League
• http://www.sciencecentral.com/site/493186
• http://www.arml.com/state_and_regional.php
• http://www.unl.edu/amc/mathclub/events/03,2r-EN.html
• http://www.alabamamath.org/mathematics_tournaments.php