Nine teams of XMUM students shine in the Contemporary Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling (CUMCM) 2022, taking home two First Prizes, three Second Prizes and four Successful Participant Prizes.

It includes 27 year-2 or year-3 students from 5 Schools and Department(s), namely Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, School of Electrical Engineering and Artificial Intelligence, School of Computing and Data Science, School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, and School of Economics and Management.

Organized by the China Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, CUMCM is an annual contest for undergraduates all over the world. This year, the event attracted 54,257 teams with more than 160,000 students from over 1,600 institutions.

In the contest, teams of at most three are required to develop in three days mathematical and/or computer models to solve a simplified real-world problem in engineering, management, etc. It aims to improve students' understanding of mathematics, especially mathematical modeling and mathematical software, and while enhancing students' motivation for studying mathematics and cultivating their creativity and overall ability.

“For our team, the competition problem - Compositional Analysis and Identification of Ancient Glass Products - is unfamiliar but intriguing, ” said Li Songru, the leader of one of the First-Prize teams, “We thus learned quite a lot of chemical engineering knowledge and algorithmic models, while having our classroom knowledge enhanced.”

“We suggest future participants give the competition enough time to avoid rush work. Also, remember to divide your workload wisely - cooperation leads to success.”

Ye Xingmin, the team leader of another First-Prize-winning team, claimed that the competition allows them to put theory into practice:

“We utilized statistics and probability theory in the contest, which helped us a lot. Besides, Excel and R Programming Language made the preparation much more effective.”

She also emphasized the importance of teamwork: “All my teammates tried their best in problem-solving and effective communicating, devoting themselves to the very end of the competition. We can’t make it without our joint efforts. ”

Below is a list of the winners and their awards: