The International Student Team Online Competition in Mathematics (ISTOCiM) took place on November 13 and the students of the University of Tartu also took part in it.
Due to the risk of COVID-19 and travel restrictions, the competition took place via ZOOM - the tasks were made available within a certain period of time, solved at the Delta Center, scanned, and sent for evaluation. To ensure fair competition, the teams were in contact with the judges over the video call throughout the competition. Within four hours, the team had to solve ten given tasks, for which a maximum of 25 points could be obtained. The tasks were on algebra, analysis, probability theory, and geometry. The competition was coordinated by the University of Silesia (Poland).
This time the University of Tartu had two teams in the competition:
University of Tartu team 1
University of Tartu team 2
“University of Tartu team 2” won the 3rd prize with 18 points and “University of Tartu team 1” was recognized with a diploma for 11 points. The overall winners this time were two teams from Saint Petersburg University, both of whom achieved the maximum possible score.
What makes the competition interesting is the fact that bachelor's, master's, and doctoral students can all participate. As well, participants in one team do not have to be from the same school. In mathematics, team competitions are quite rare. Therefore, the team needs to know each other very well to divide the tasks according to the strengths of the teammates. The team of the University of Tartu was supervised by Indrek Zolk.
The tasks, solutions, and results of the competition can be found on the official website of the competition.
Indrek Zolk, Lecturer in Mathematical Analysis and Programme Director of the Mathematics BSc curriculum, indrek.zolk@ut.ee