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MCM, Mathematical Contest in Modeling

The Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications, COMAP, administers several competitions in applied mathematics. MIT Mathematics Majors compete in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling, MCM. A team of three students work together, from 8:00 PM on a Thursday in February to 8:00 PM on the following Monday, to produce a paper on a very open ended problem in applied mathematics. Almost a thousand teams compete, two thirds from outside the United States.

Prof. Bazant has trained and advised MCM teams from MIT since 2001. Training and team selection for MCM takes place during the IAP session. If you would like to compete in the MCM or participate in a student-run MCM Club, please contact Martin Bazant, .

MIT MCM Winners

  • 2014 Anne K. Kelley, Jason Liang, Eric Wang. Meritorioius
  • 2013 Joshua Alman, Damien Jiang, Jon Schneider Meritorioius
  • 2012 Joshua Alman, Vlad Firiou, Damien Jiang

Past MCM Problems Solved by our 'Dream Team'

One team, consisting of Dan Gulotta, Daniel Kane and Andrew Spann, has won high honors in each of the past four competitions and was featured in the SIAM News.

2007 Competition

The problem chosen by the MIT team, in brief:

"Suppose you were given the opportunity to draw congressional districts for a state. How would you do so as a purely 'baseline' exercise to create the 'simplest' shapes for all the districts in a state?"

The MIT team was one of the seventeen Outstanding Winners, and the SIAM Prize Recipient (for best paper).

2006 Competition

The problem chosen by the MIT team, in brief, was to propose optimal wheel chair access and control at an airport.

For their solution, the MIT team was named as one of the fifteen Outstanding Winners, and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Prize Recipient (for best paper in discrete mathematics).

2005 Competition

The problem chosen by the MIT team, in brief:

"Make a model to help you determine the optimal number of tollbooths to deploy in a barrier-toll plaza."

The MIT team was one of fourteen Outstanding Winners.

2004 Competition

The problem chosen by the MIT team, in brief:

"propose and test schemes for issuing QuickPasses in order to increase people's enjoyment of the amusement park."

The MIT team was one of twelve Outstanding Winners, and winner of the Ben Fusaro Award (for most creative solution).