A total of 83 awards were given to elementary (8th and 9th years) and high school students from public and private schools in 14 states in the final phase of the 39th Unicamp Mathematics Olympiad (OMU), a project carried out by the Mathematics Institute, Statistics and Scientific Computing (Imecc) at the university.
In the final, gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded to 58 teams, totaling 174 students. Of this total, 25 teams were also awarded for the quality of the writing with which they presented solutions to the mathematical problems in the test. In total, 332 medals were distributed.
The final phase was carried out in person, at Unicamp. For the second year, the test was administered on Saturday (2/9), corrected in the afternoon of the same day, and the announcement of the medal teams took place the following day, Sunday (3/9).
This format allowed participants from more distant states and cities to receive the results in person, in an exciting awards ceremony at Teatro de Arena, at Unicamp. The event was attended by students, teachers, family members and representatives of the Dean of Extension and Culture (Proec) at Unicamp and Imecc. The OMU coordinator and Julia Jaccoud, creator of the YouTube channel “A Matemaniana”, also participated in the ceremony, who held a chat with the students before the award ceremony.
Result by state
For the final phase, 230 teams were called from 20 states. São Paulo received the most medals: 25 in total, followed by Ceará, with 23, and Pernambuco, with 12. Next, are the Federal District, with five awards, and Santa Catarina, with four. Amazonas, Piauí, Rio de Janeiro and Goiás took two medals each. The states of Bahia, Minas Gerais, Rondônia, Pará and Sergipe took one medal each.
On Sunday morning, high school students who qualified for the final team phase were also able to take an individual test. If the student becomes a gold, silver or bronze medalist in this test, he or she will be able to compete in the Unicamp Olympic Vacancy notice, which allows entry to graduate school in 2024, without taking the entrance exam.
The courses covered by the Notice will be announced this semester, but the organization's expectation is that they will be diverse in the exact area. The result of the individual test will be announced in an online ceremony on September 29th.
Marcelo Firer, member of the OMU organizing committee and professor at Imecc, highlighted the importance of the event, which brought together hundreds of students interested in mathematics. “It is a great joy to see so many students gathered together, taking the test with pleasure and enthusiasm for mathematics. Interestingly, we also see many students returning as teachers,” he said.
About the format of the OMU test
OMU is organized into two levels: Alpha (for students in the 8th and 9th years of Elementary School) and Beta (for high school students).
This year, the Olympics registered a record number of entries, more than 10 thousand participants in 3 thousand teams from across the country.
Unlike other mathematics competitions, OMU is held in teams made up of three students, as well as a responsible teacher. The first two phases are online, lasting one week each, in which students can debate and seek solutions to the problems presented through debate and research.
