“The Dominators” earn first perfect score in iTest history, win USA national title

(Nashville, TN) – The iTest, also known as the American High School Internet Mathematics Competition (“AHSIMC”), awarded its first perfect score of 101 to “The Dominators,” a team of students from five different high schools across the country. These five students worked together using instant messaging software and a “rapid barrage” of emails in winning the 2005 iTest and claiming the United States Mathematics National Championship.

Zhou Fan, the team’s captain, attends Parsippany Hills High School in Parsippany, New Jersey, while Alex Yang, Alice Tzeng, Yi Sun, and Daniel Litt attend West Windsor-Plainsboro High School (New Jersey), Lafayette High School (Louisiana), The Harker School (California), and Orange High School (Ohio), respectively.

The 2005 iTest took place from September 16 through September 20, and was free to all participating students and schools. Over 31,000 students from hundreds of schools nationwide participated in the second year of what educators call “a groundbreaking educational experience.” The winning team members will receive iPod Nanos and a package of iPod accessories, courtesy of Griffin Technology.

The 2005 runner-up was a team of students from Ames High School in Ames, Iowa. Joshua Moloney, Qi Gan, Kevin Lu, Xin Pan, and James Pringle took second place nationally with a score of 97. Teams from Vestavia Hills High School (Alabama) and Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology (Virginia) tied for third place with a score of 91.

The 2005 iTest Sponsor’s Award for Leadership was awarded to Leona Penner of Lincoln East High School in Lincoln, Nebraska, for her dedication to making her students as successful as possible. Natasha Doty, who captained her team to a third place finish in Nebraska and a top 100 finish nationally, remarks that “Ms. Penner has shown me that even though the answer may not be apparent, if I continue to work, my struggles will lead to success.”

The 2005 iTest Sponsor’s Award for Exceptional Teaching was awarded to Dr. Alan Vraspir of the Albuquerque Academy in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for his incredible enthusiasm in the classroom. Dr. Vraspir, in solving a particularly tough mathematics problem for his students, “tends to jump up and down in excitement,” which gets his students fired up to learn more. “Dr. Vraspir led me into the real world of mathematics,” writes one of his students, “and he has shown me much more about math than I would have ever dreamt of.”

Winning the 2005 iTest iNvention Award, a side contest in which students proposed new accessories to build for the iPod Nano, was Garrett Goss of Georgia’s Marist School. He created a schematic for a device that would allow an iPod Nano to be inserted into a laptop’s PCMCIA slot, and in doing so, won an iPod Nano for his efforts.

Winning the 2005 iTest Art Award, which required students to design the 2006 iTest logo for use next year, was student Nash Spence of Montana’s Billings West High School, beating out over 30 other contestants to win an iPod Nano of his own.

The iTest is free to all participating students and schools, thanks to funding provided by iPod accessory manufacturer Griffin Technology. The national event was founded by Bradley Metrock, a Nashville resident and Vanderbilt University graduate.

“The iTest is the fastest growing high school academic event in the United States,” Metrock said. “Because the iTest is completely free to students, teachers, and their schools, every student at every school in America can now access the elite world of competitive mathematics.”

For more information on the iTest, please contact Bradley Metrock at Bradley@AHSIMC.com or 615-972-8833, or visit www.theitest.com.

Titans lost to the lowly Arizona Cardinals. This year is going south in a hurry.

Almost wrapped up the work on the 2005 iTest, with Solutions Guides getting shipped out on Friday. Big time increase in submitted exams, thanks to huge increases in overall nationwide exposure as well as our random iPod Nano giveaway to a random student on a team that submitted an exam for grading.

I'll post a copy of the 2005 iTest Nationwide Awards Announcement press release here when its sent out on Tuesday, Nov. 1.

Quick thoughts:

- Back from Beaufort, South Carolina (for the second time) and likely not heading back again anytime soon. Scenic place, but if my cell phone doesn't work, its not going to endear itself to me. Got some good reviews from Actus superiors on the work I did there, but you can chalk that up to a talented cast of characters that were already there.

- How dumb are the Braves to allow Leo Mazzone to run off to another team to be pitching coach? The real error was not locking him up to a nice, fat long-term contract years ago. That streak of 15 straight years of winning the NL East? Adios.

- Speaking of Atlanta, spent Friday night with none other than Mark Presley. Went to see Doom (if you played the game, go see it...just enough creativity on top of all the action/horror to make it worthwhile) and then saw Mark dispatch some helpless duo of clowns on the tennis court in his last regular season league doubles match of the year, 6-1 and 6-2. I'm looking forward to seeing if Chik-Fil-A, his employer, continues to recognize what an asset they've got in their IT department with him and gets him into a position of wide-ranging authority as quickly as possible.

- The Titans will be sending Billy Volek into the fray in their effort to dispatch Arizona tomorrow. I'm ready for the Titans to start beating the living hell out of some people, and it might as well start now, guys. If Tyrone Calico doesn't turn his season around tomorrow, with the strong-armed Volek cannoning balls to him throughout the afternoon, he ought to be cut.

- One person that ought to be cut RIGHT NOW is Daunte Culpepper. Yeah, yeah, talk about his salary, but this pretender has been revealed to be a talentless hack now that Randy Moss has headed west. The Vikings are going to continue losing with or without him, so why not send the scathing message to the team, if you're Zygi Wilf, the owner?

- Heading to Fortune Magazine's Innovation Forum in New York City on Nov. 30-Dec. 1, and may stay Friday, December 2 if I decide to take a day off from work that day. I've already used up 3-4 of my 16 vacation days, and I'm going to need a substantial amount for planned Christmas and summer '06 vacations, so it's not certain yet if I'll take that Friday off. If I do take that Friday off, it'll be to accomplish a couple of key iTest-related tasks. The Innovation Forum is full of huge names and will be great to help me consider new possibilities within my role at Actus. I love events like this!

- I have been getting some spam-bots or something leaving automated messages in my "comments" area of this blog lately, so as of right this second, comments are now disabled on this and subsequent posts. I already know who comes in and out of this blog, and as ought to be apparent, I post what I feel like posting regardless of the audience. If you have a comment, email me or something.

- I have plans to get a week's worth of Guest Bloggers to blog for this Online Travesty in a week coming up real soon. Stay tuned.

Warning: amazing tune below. Go get it for free on iTunes through tomorrow, or after that, use any means necessary. Rare that I get into the whole "playing a song over and over again" thing, which is what I've been doing with this tune for days.


"Over My Head" - The Fray

I never knew.
I never knew that everything was falling through.
That everyone I knew was waiting on a queue...
to turn and run, when all I needed was the truth.

But that's how it's got to be.
It's coming down to nothing more than apathy.
I'd rather run the other way than stay and see...
the smoke, and who's still standing when it clears.

Everyone knows I'm in over my head.
With eight seconds left in overtime, she's on your mind, she's on your mind...

Let's rearrange.
I wish you were a stranger I could disengage.
Say that we agree, and then never change.
Soften a bit until we all just get along...

...but that's disregard.
Find another friend, and you discard.
As you lose the argument in a cable car,
hanging above as the canyon comes between.

Everyone knows I'm in over my head.
With eight seconds left in overtime, she's on your mind, she's on your mind...

And suddenly, I become a part of your past.
I'm becoming the part that don't last.
I'm losing you, and its effortless...

Without a sound, we lose sight of the ground,
in the throw around.
Never thought that you wanted to bring it down...
I won't let it go down till we torch it ourselves.

Everyone knows I'm in over my head...

Back in Nashville, at least for the moment. Great to be back!!

Got the paperwork for the iTest's tax exemption. Sweet.

I was scheduled to begin an audio Podcast for the iTest this month, but I've been thinking now about skipping that and going directly to video Podcasts after the recent announcement by Apple of new video functionality. The videos could obviously be downloaded off the Web as well by people who don't have an iPod or those who would just rather download it to the desktop instead of to the handheld.

Like everything else, a work in progress...

Flying out of Beaufort tomorrow back to Nashville, only to return next Wednesday through the rest of next week.

This is one of the first places I've been that has ZERO CELL PHONE RECEPTION. Maddening, as you might imagine.

Lori got her first job offer today, which is huge. Takes a lot of stress off of her. Its with one of the top firms in the city, and while its going to mean a lot of work...I told her that she's going to be working hard wherever she is, so she might as well make as much money as she can while she's at it, right? Congrats, L, for rocking a tedious and intimidating interview process.

I am looking forward to being home for the weekend, a privilege I had to negotiate as things down here at Beaufort are beginning to turn a corner. It has been an interesting time down here, and certainly a strong learning experience as the "strategic initiatives" I come up with have immediate and tangible outcomes for the company. I can't tell you how gratifying that is. I always have to wonder in amazement how I got an MBA in both finance and "human and organizational performance" (gotta love that one) and then end up in strategy. God has put me in a position to make an impact which is all I ever asked for.

There has been plenty of time to sit around and contemplate things down here, as I have no cell phone reception (as I mentioned previously) as well as no TV or (until two days ago) internet reception in this Actus house I'm staying in while I'm here. I'm staying in this house by my own request to save company costs and learn more about our property, but I'm missing my creature comforts!

Though grading is nearly complete for the 2005 iTest and I have begun planning for the iTest CS, I still am forced to contemplate a major decision for the 2006 iTest. We know we are either one of many competitions that students at a given school may take, or the only national one they will participate in for the entire year. Do we improve our participation numbers by imitating other national competitions, or by attacking them and going on the offensive?

Its a major branding question. It seems logical to take a more rebellious stance, which aligns us with the natural course of being a teenager like our customers. Both the title and prestige of winning the National Championship, as well as the continually-escalating prize structure of the iTest, will pull students in regardless, so its not as risky of a move as it may seem though.

Several readers of this blog took what was known as the AHSME back in the day, which is now called the AMC when they switched names a few years ago. They constitute the only thing standing in the way of the iTest claiming the title of largest national math competition in the United States, which isn't the most necessary of titles, but would make for an unambiguously good way to describe the iTest in the future. They offer a well-written exam (for a price), but as I've noted before in this space, the "prize" for winning is getting to advance to a harder competition for which you get to pay more money to take. And, naturally, the prize for winning THAT exam is taking a multiple-day proof-oriented contest, which could result in you getting to spend your summer doing math. Sound like fun?

They have improved their capital flow slightly out of stagnant to declining growth, which is admirable, but still are standing relatively still.

We aren't going to win the game of "highest level of mathematical respectability" as I don't hold a PhD in math and certainly never will, though the quantity of education behind the test-writers of the AMC exams is at a remarkably high level. Thus, we have changed the rules of the game - we are going after the largest number of participating students.

Since the AMC will never be able to match us in cost (free, baby!) and is too established to take any risks in marketing, we are now playing a game we can actually win.

If our shaping of the iTest brand going forward is done thoughtfully, we will indeed emerge victorious.

Sometimes, I just have to stand back at accomplishments of others in admiration. When this happens in the music realm, its especially sweet, as I then have a song I can listen to for the rest of my life!

Mike Doughty's "Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well" is just SICK. The groove is amazing. His beat-poetry lyrical style on top of it just rocks. Very catchy and melodic - accessible to the mainstream, which is important.

As a musician, you just sit back in awe at where this guy pulled the inspiration for this song from. Obviously, the entire Soul Coughing catalog is an incredibly unique contribution to recent (past decade or so) popular music, but I am really excited about hearing Doughty's upcoming full-length solo disc after hearing this single, which is also being featured this season in "Grey's Anatomy."

And, oh yeah, AHSIMC is now a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. A lot more on this to come.

Lori is 25 today. Going to PF Changs (her favorite place) and then to the Vandy law library, where she's got some work she has to do and wants me to keep her company. Hey, when its your birthday, you call the shots.

Deep into iTest grading, easily the most tedious part of the whole thing. Some of the team names are hilarious, and some teams came up with fairly "creative" answers for questions they couldn't solve...which makes it much easier to deal with grading this many tests.

Certainly, this won't be happening next year. We'll be pulling out all the stops on automating the site, which will also eliminate another annoying aspect of running this thing: teachers that haven't configured their spam filters to let iTest emails through on a regular basis. Everything will run through the website, so there's no risk that we won't receive an exam or that everyone won't get the test on time.

The response to the iTest iNvention contest (sponsored by Griffin Technology, where kids submit ideas for a new iPod Nano accessory) and the 2006 iTest Logo Contest have been amazing. The Griffin folks and I will sit down soon to determine the best iPod Nano accessory, but I have to admit that several of these things would be cool if they built them. I have no idea who will (or should) win, but I do know we have demonstrated a major success with our first corporate partner.

The 2006 iTest logos I've been getting have ranged from uninspired violations of various copyrights to amazing works of art. Either way, its fun to see what folks have come up with.

These winning entries, along with excerpts from the email we've been getting, will be great additions to the press materials we send out on November 1 as part of our 2005 iTest Nationwide Awards Announcement.

Though my team in the fantasy baseball league that I ran this year was easily the worst team I've ever had in years of playing, largely due to my first round draft pick not playing all year (Bonds) and poor choices in other rounds in selecting players whose time hasn't quite come...

my team in Evan's league is tearing it up. The "Mariners" are up 13-0 in the championship round with 6 days left to go, all but securing a fantasy championship in his league. For posterity, the members of the team (which have pretty much been intact all year, since I haven't changed it much) are:

Mike Piazza - C, New York Mets
Mike Sweeney - 1B, Kansas City Royals
Luis Castillo - 2B, Florida Marlins
Joe Randa - 3B, San Diego Padres
Jose Reyes - SS, New York Mets
Manny Ramirez - OF, Boston Red Sox
Carl Crawford - OF, Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Lance Berkman - OF, Houston Astros
Jason Bay - OF, Pittsburgh Pirates (in my first Util slot)
Pat Burrell - OF, Philadelphia Phillies (in my second Util slot)

Jake Westbrook - SP, Cleveland Indians
Jae Seo - SP, New York Mets (neither of these guys were in my lineup til later in the year)
Kyle Farnsworth - RP, Atlanta Braves
Duaner Sanchez - RP, Los Angeles Dodgers
Derrick Turnbow - RP, Milwaukee Brewers
Yhency Brazoban - RP, Los Angeles Dodgers
Felix Hernandez - SP, Seattle Mariners

Jeff's latest blog entry discusses the Wright amendment, which has been a frequent problem of Lori's and mine when we fly to see her family in Dallas. Articulate, as usual, and insightful.

www.thebrokedown.com

Will Canzoneri's band. Go there and frolick in the land of good tunes.

As versatile of a musician as he is, its not surprising these guys are enjoying a hefty amount of success.

What are you still doing reading this?

This is insane...Lori gets these emails from Gee through the law school listserv, and forwarded this to me...

From: gordon.gee@vanderbilt.edu
Reply-To: gordon.gee@vanderbilt.edu
To: vanderbilt-students@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Urgent Message from Chancellor Gee
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 20:15:15 -0500
vanderbilt-students

From: gordon.gee@vanderbilt.edu

September 25, 2005

Dear Students,

I am writing tonight about a very serious matter.

Earlier today, you received a Security Alert regarding a shooting in the Morgan House residence hall. Although the incident is still under investigation by Metro Police and VUPD, we can share with you the latest information.

At approximately 2:00 a.m., a female Vanderbilt student brought several non-student individuals into Morgan to attend a party onthe 10th floor.

These individuals were asked to leave the party after they made a disturbance. When the non-student individuals, and the Vanderbilt student, got on the elevator on the 10th floor, two of the individuals--both men--pulled out handguns and fired several shots into the hallway, hitting a male Vanderbilt student in the arm. The assailants--along with the female Vanderbilt student--then rode the elevator to the ground floor and fled the building. In addition to the student who received the gunshot wound, two other students received minor injuries in the ensuing confusion. All three were treated and released by Vanderbilt Hospital, and each is expected to make a full recovery, for which we are very grateful. VUPD responded immediately to the incident and--along with Metro Police--are conducting an active investigation. We expect that those responsible will be identified and prosecuted.

We are confident that this incident--as horrifying as it is--represents a very unusual occurrence. However, as you know, campus safety has been an issue of intense discussion in recent weeks. Working together, we have made great progress in educating and informing students about the programs and services that are in place to ensure the security of our University community. Every residence hall has card readers to limit access to students and residents. Vanderbilt has a large and well-trained police force that patrols the campus 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and there have been increased foot patrols and bike patrols in recent weeks. Security cameras are installed in many locations on campus, including a number of elevators, and have been particularly helpful in the investigation of this incident. Student Life staff are holding meetings in the residence halls to give students an opportunity to discuss the recent incidents with VUPD officers, and student leaders held a town hall meeting to talk about campus safety. Staff and students have conducted a review of lighting in the Greek Row area and have identified dark areas to which additional lighting is being added. Five additional Blue Light Emergency Phones have been added in locations across the campus, including the Greek Row area. We have also added another van to the Vandy Vans escort system to provide an increased number of campus escorts.

Together with continuous education and information about personal security, all of these measures help create one of the safest college environments in the region, if not in the country. But there is one element of campus security that requires the cooperation, participation, and vigilance of every student: responsibility for guests that are brought to campus. In this morning's incident, security cameras indicate that the assailants were let into Morgan and accompanied to the party by a Vanderbilt student. This was not a random shooting or "home invasion." Rather, the perpetrators were given access to our campus by a current student.

We pride ourselves on being part of an open community that values constant interaction to the extent that it is neither realistic nor desirable to create unwieldy barriers. At the same time, we must ensure that our University remains safe, and that every member of our community understands his or her responsibilities and rights. For these reasons, I am appointing a special Task Force of students, administrators, and security specialists to review campus security, with a special emphasis on our policies and procedures for access to residence halls and other student areas. The members of this Task Force will be announced tomorrow (Monday, September 26). I will direct the Task Force to provide an immediate analysis of both our current procedures and the mechanisms for enforcement, and to make recommendations for changes that will address our twin imperatives of openness and safety. I expect this process to take weeks, not months, and for there to be vigorous and informed discussion among students about the alternatives, which will then be presented to the University community for implementation.

There is no question that the safety of our students, faculty, staff, patients, and visitors is our highest priority. Incidents such as the one that occurred in Morgan House remind us that senseless violence can occur in even the most protected and comfortable environments, surrounded by friends and colleagues. We must work together as a community to prevent a recurrence.

I am making a personal pledge to you--our students--that I work tirelessly to ensure our campus remains one of the safest.

Cordially,

Gordon Gee

Titans couldn't quite pull it out against the Rams in one of the worst games I've seen Steve McNair play. Bulger and Holt made Pacman Jones look like the inexperienced rookie he is. Haynesworth was out and while that certainly made a difference in the game, can't really worry too much about that with the toughest game yet coming up next week against Indy at home.

Time to get a jump on some of these legal documents that I'll be spending my week here at home reading before heading out to South Carolina.

Good new song by Ben's brother's band, Belerian, which is comprised primarily of Vestavia students and is based here in Nashville. Josh attends Belmont, as I think the majority of the band does.

Song is called "Siren" and the recording is raw in a good way. Josh's guitar is sounding good as usual but its the bass really letting it rip and the vocalist letting loose that make it memorable. The groove is great and I think its cool these guys are obviously getting a feel for playing together.

If you're here in town, check 'em out. I know I will when I return from Beaufort. (Oh yeah, I'm getting dispatched to Beaufort, South Carolina, by Actus to assist in the crisis management going on there. I'll be gone from October 3 through Oct. 15.)

PS...MySpace page for Belerian is at www.myspace.com/belerian.

Back from seeing "Just Like Heaven," a movie Lori had been dying to see...not your typical chick flick. Pretty funny and featured the guy from Napoleon Dynamite in a really funny role. Not too bad if you gotta go see one of these.

Continuing my prolific blogging re: the iTest...

I have had to play my reluctant role of kindergarten teacher in restoring sanity to the artofproblemsolving.com AHSIMC forum. The kids were irritated at typos (which I was too, a lot) but also with some of the answers. Of course, like any forum over time, this place has degenerated into the same people posting over and over again, and unfortunately for us, its some people with an axe to grind.

I am disgusted at the lost potential of working closer with the site folks, as Mathew's a good guy and a Vestavite. But just when I think I've brought the forum back under control, along comes an inexplicable post from the site creator condoning the high school rudeness and general belligerence on the forum, as well as telling us how to market our own competition! (They don't like us calling ourselves a "premiere" competition. They probably won't like it when we actually are one, either!)

I don't mind kids running their mouths on an online forum - that's what this outlet is there for. And of course they are going to lack discretion. But when some middle age guy who is supposed to know better comes along and doesn't unequivocally denounce rude, insulting behavior on his own forum, where he is viewed as a figurehead, I wonder what on earth I'm doing as part of it.

I can't explain it. Maybe you can. Go to the site yourself and check it out and give me your thoughts at some point. I really don't have time for this type of stuff. I had no idea this guy ran his business like this when I signed on, and now its probably too late.

In another oddity, some random student decided to email us his half-finished college admissions essay, calling it "the answer key."

Looking at the plethora of Griffin iPod Nano accessory ideas and 2006 iTest logos that have been coming in has been a blast, but there's been several bizarre ones too.

We are full-speed-ahead on pursuing the iTest trademark, and I gave the go-ahead today to the legal team to lay waste to another party that's challenging our trademark instead of moving us to the Supplemental Register. Simultaneously, we await the IRS' final word on our tax exempt status, a decision that will definitely affect us one way or the other.

Watched the premiere of The Apprentice with Lori tonight...

If the show has a low point, its that Trump is quick to fire people who don't play by his rules. He fired Bradford last year early on because he refused his exemption, a move designed to motivate his team. For whatever reason, the Donald doesn't seem to be too fond of moves like that.

Tonight, the team leader (I forget her name) did a decent job, and there was a clear loser who needed to go from the women's team after they lost and had to face the boardroom. When the team leader elected not to bring the customary two people into the boardroom - opting only to bring Melissa, the nasty girl who couldn't get along with anyone - Trump once again took offense. Fortunately, he appeared to have learned from his previous mistake and fired the right person this time! So the show is off to a pretty good start.

Now that the iTest has concluded and I've had a chance to actually breathe for a minute (!) as well as return to work, I think life may be returning to normal for a while. The iTest CS development is underway and if early indications mean anything, its going to be a monstrous success filling a much-needed demand for computer science competitions in the US. But where do we go after that to continue to grow? That's going to be a huge question.

We've got to take the final step in eliminating typos from next year's test, as well as get our new online infrastructure in place so we can begin testing it for next year. The work, quite simply, never ends.

The 2005 iTest has concluded...whew! What a crazy 5 days. We've got a lot of work to do with grading and getting the Solutions Guide printed before moving on to get the iTest CS fully ready to go.

Back to work tomorrow. Off to sleep!

Our sponsor had a change of heart all of a sudden...and just like that, Griffin Technology is once again the 2005 iTest's Corporate Partner. Check them out if you have an iPod and buy their stuff at www.griffintechnology.com.

The 2005 iTest launches in 10 hours to 240 schools across the country, with huge groups of students slated to participate at many schools. Our participation will be way, way up. This is gonna be big.