Campus Connection

A team of UW-L students has written one of the top-ranked papers in the world in the recent 2010 Mathematical Contest in Modeling, a competition that drew 2,600 entries from 13 countries. The UW-L team of Jacky Chan, John Nehls and Joey Powers earned a “finalist” ranking for their submission “No Sting in Your Swing,” in which they developed a theoretical model of impact between various types of bats (including aluminum, ash and "corked") and a baseball. This placed their paper among the top nine in the world and the top five in the nation (out of 920 who chose the same problem). Other institutions in the top five nationally included Princeton University, the University of Delaware and the U.S. Military Academy. Additionally, four other UW-L teams — featuring students Paul Benzschawel, Hillary Brummond, Brandon Groth, Cody Hunt, Maria Jansen, Leslie Kent, Ali Khalili,, Jimmy McDermott, Katie Ott, Hoang Vo, Amanda Welter and Matt Zuberbuehler — placed in the top 40 percent in the global competition. Faculty advisers include Robert Allen, Barbara Bennie, James Peirce, Theodore Wendt and Huiya Yan. Find out more about mathematics at UW-L at http://www.uwlax.edu/mathematics/dept/index.htm.