Information
What is GEMS?
GEMS is the first contest run by the girls of the Stuyvesant Math Team, for girls (#womeninSTEM)! Any female/non-binary student who is currently attending high school within the five boroughs of New York City can participate. It's completely free! See below for more information on registration, location, rules, and schedule.
Consent Form
All participating students must have their parents complete this consent form once their registration is confirmed: https://forms.gle/LWYhW2gJarjamJxr6
Arrival
Participants should plan to arrive at 8:30am. All participants should enter through the main entrance at 345 Chambers Street. Since it is the weekend, it is important to take into account service changes for the subways to arrive on time.
Contest Information
Eligibility
This contest is open to female/non-binary attending any high school within the five boroughs of New York City, private or public. Students must be in grades 9-12 to participate. Schools looking to register teams must have their students register individually.
Size of Teams
Contestants will learn who is on their team on contest day. The purpose of this contest is for students to meet other girls who are also interested in math and hopefully make some new friends! Teams will be created once registration is confirmed and created with the intention of allowing students from different schools to collaborate.
Fees
None! The contest is absolutely free.
Rules
No calculators or electronic devices are allowed. Students who are learners of English may use a paper dictionary. Full contest rules can be found here.
Conventions
See this document regarding some mathematical ideas used in this contest as well as conventions regarding the form of answers.
Format
Puzzle Hunt Round
When solved, each puzzle will lead to a short word or phrase, How do you find it? That's for you to find out!
Everything except talking to people not on your team is fair game! Google things, ChatGPT them (it won't help), use the reference sheets that will be provided!
Teams will be provided a maximum of three hints during the duration of the contest.
Individual Round
60 minutes for a problem set consisting of 8 questions.
Marathon Round
90 minutes for the team to work through a maximum of 26 questions.
Teams will be given two questions to work on. Once they complete a question, they can submit it to be graded and receive another question to work on.
Scores will be shown live on the screen.
4. Fermi Round
A Fermi question is one where a seemingly impossible-to-calculate answer is estimated
Answers are given in powers of ten
Points are distributed the following way:
5 points for the correct power of ten
3 points for one away from the correct power of ten
1 point for two away from the correct power of ten