ARML 2009 General Information for All Sites
Housing
ONSITE HOUSING REGISTRATION: Please go to the registration building upon arrival. See the "Site Specific Information" link for the location. At the registration desk you will be given room keys, programs, maps, room and proctoring assignments for the competition, as well as other information pertinent to the weekend's activities. During the registration process we ask that you instruct your students to remain outside the registration building to alleviate congestion. The building will be open and staffed as needed on Thursday, May 28, and most of the day and evening on Friday, May 29.
LOST KEYS: Dorm room keys must be returned to housing at the end of the competition. A receipt will be given for the number of keys turned in. For each key that is missing, the ARML organization is charged up to $40 by the colleges. ARML will in turn bill the individual team after the competition is over.
HOUSING & MEALS: On Friday night, all participants (students and adults, even those who live in the same town as the competition) must be housed in dormitories on the Penn State, University of Iowa, UNLV and University of Georgia campuses. They are all within walking distance of all the weekend's activities. The cost per person will be $55 (including students and chaperones). Housing on Friday night and both breakfast and lunch on Saturday are included in the cost. Only 2 single rooms per team will be reserved for coaches at a cost of $55. Please see the "Site Specific Information" for information regarding the costs associated with arriving a day early or leaving the day after the competition.
DORMITORY SUPERVISION: Coaches are responsible for supervising their students' behavior at ARML. The doors to the dormitories will be locked at 11:00 p.m., and each team is expected to impose a midnight lights-out for their students on Friday night. The universities will provide guards to supervise the dorms, and, should any trouble arise, the appropriate coaches will be informed immediately, even if it means waking them up. ARML reserves the right to expel any students who engage in illegal activities or who are blatantly disrespectful of others or of others' property. In addition, coaches should understand that any damage to, or loss of, university property will be billed to the team of the student responsible for the damage, or, if no student takes responsibility, to the team in whose area the damage or loss occurs.
DISCIPLINE: If, at any time during the competition, a proctor notices a student behaving inappropriately, the proctor should contact the moderator of the competition, who may have the student removed. The student may be removed either temporarily or permanently from the competition, and that student's team may be assessed a penalty.
CONSENT FORMS: Please make sure that you procure signed parental consent and medical release forms from all students who are participating in ARML. A sample is provided on this website.
Team Registration
COACHES' MEETING: The time of the meeting is 8:00pm at Penn State, Iowa, and Georgia. At UNLV, the meeting is at 3:00pm. The location of the meeting will be available upon check-in at the sites. Each team, or set of teams, is expected to send exactly ONE coach to the meeting so that other coaches will be free to provide adequate supervision of the students. Please bring the following to the Coaches' Meeting:
- ARML Scoresheets. You will need to fill these out at the meeting on three-ply carbon paper (provided at the meeting)
- Your completed "Proctors & Alternates Sheet" (instructions under Proctors & under Alternates)
- Payment for your team's fees.
- If you have any items to be placed on the agenda for the Coaches' Meetings, please contact J. Bryan Sullivan, the ARML President at his email jbsully@verizon.net or voice: (978) 422-6675
SCORE SHEETS: Your team will be given the "ARML Scoresheet" at the Coaches’ Meeting. This is a tri-copy document that we use to distribute the individual results at the end of the contest. We have provided a copy, for your convenience, of this document that can be downloaded. Please list ALPHABETICALLY the 15 students on each team, one team per sheet. This form will be collected at the Coaches' Meeting on Friday. Bring these sheets to the Coaches' Meeting as well.
INCOMPLETE TEAMS: If you arrive with a team that has fewer than 15 members, you must enter that incomplete team if you wish to compete for team recognition. If you wish to augment your team with students from other teams, your team will then be considered an alternate team, rendering it ineligible for team awards.
ALTERNATES: ARML will create teams of alternates so that everyone who makes the trip will get to participate. Please submit with your team registration fees an extra $25 for each alternate that you plan to bring. If you bring alternates not accounted for in your prepaid registration fees, please be prepared to pay $25 for each of them when you arrive at ARML. Please have all of your alternates listed on the "Proctors & Alternates Sheet" to be turned in at the Coaches' Meeting on Friday. Alternate team members are eligible for individual awards.
A OR B DIVISION: Each student and each team at ARML will work on the same questions, and each will have the same time allocated to solve each question. However, in order to afford more teams the opportunity to win awards, teams may enter in either Division A or Division B, subject to the following provisions: any team may enter in Division A, and certain teams must enter in Division A. Please see the document on the website that lists these teams.
CONTACT INFORMATION: Students and coaches will be asked to provide contact information on a Scantron form prior or during the competition. All coaches and students are eligible for prizes that will be mailed after the competition concludes. These prize winners will be contacted via the information provided on this form. If this contact information is not provided, then that student or coach will forfeit any award that would require contact after the competition concludes. A student or coach may opt-out on the Scantron form of any recruiting opportunities or solicitations that may result from providing this information to ARML.
Proctoring and Scoring
PROCTORING AND SCORING REQUIREMENTS: Each 15 member team must provide at least two adults. One adult will be assigned to proctor another team during the Team, Power, Individual, Relay, and Super Relay rounds. This proctor may also be called upon to proctor the tiebreaker rounds. The other adult will be assigned to the scoring room. It is helpful, though not absolutely required, if this person is mathematically inclined as he/she will be reading submitted answers which utilize mathematical notation.
POWER ROUND GRADERS: A general appeal is made to all teams to provide a person who can grade the Power round. This person should be familiar with proof oriented questions and solutions. If your team is traveling with such a person, please make yourselves known to the Site Coordinator in the days leading up to the contest and no later than the Coaches meeting.
PROCTOR REGISTRATION: On your "Proctors & Alternates Sheet", please note the names of your proctors and designate who is to be proctoring on the competition floor and who is to be in the Scoring Room. This sheet is to be turned in at the Coaches' Meeting on Friday. If you are bringing alternates, make sure that you have a proctor for every 8 alternates or any fraction thereof. YOU MUST CONSIDER PROVIDING PROCTORS TO BE ONE OF YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES IN FORMING YOUR TEAM. While providing two proctors is required, everyone who comes to ARML will have a job: chaperones are expected to help proctor or score as needed. In order to facilitate the management of the contest, please download the proctors manual and the instructions for the Relays, and make sure that your competition-floor proctors read these sheets before the meet. Proctors for the Team Round and Power Question are required to bring a digital watch to facilitate accurate timing of those rounds.
RELAY ROUND: The rules that were established for the relay round for the 2008 competition will remain in effect. Click here for clarification.
SCORING PROCEDURES: There is a very specific, step-by-step procedure in place for scoring the contest. This procedure has been developed to eliminate any scoring errors. Working together and following this procedure exactly has been very successful in the past. Those who will be assigned to the scoring room will be required to follow this procedure. Click here to review the procedure.
INDIVIDUAL ROUND TIE-BREAKER: The top individual scorers, along with the entire audience, participate in the Tie-Breaker Round to determine the top ten individual scorers. We ask that all proctors who have a stopwatch make themselves available at this time. Instructions will be provided by moderator.
Team Names
This is a New Policy for ARML 2009
To make the scoring process friendlier to participants, coaches, parents and ARML officials for the 2009 ARML competition, we are requiring all coaches to apply the following conventions when naming their teams:
- Division A teams will use the code A1, A2, A3, etc to indicate the strength of their teams with A1 being the strongest team and subsequent teams decreasing in strength.
- Division B teams will use the code B1, B2, B3, etc to indicate the strength of their teams with B1 being the strongest team and subsequent teams decreasing in strength.
- Example: Let us say that Wyoming has 7 teams, four are in Division A and three are in Division B.
- The four Division A teams will be named as follows:
- Wyoming A1: Red Sox
- Wyoming A2: White Sox
- Wyoming A3: Mariners
- Wyoming A4: Yankees
- The three Division B teams will be named as follows:
- Wyoming B1: Braves
- Wyoming B2: Phillies
- Wyoming B3: Mets
Please consult the link on this website called "Teams that must compete in Division A" in order to properly place your teams in each division.
Awards
New policies for ARML 2009 are denoted by *
* NATIONAL AWARDS: Nine teams in Division A and seven teams in Division B will receive national awards. The seven highest scoring teams in Division B teams will move to Division A for the next three years. Any team in Division A that has a equal or higher score than the seventh place team in Division B will remain in Division A for the next three years.
* SITE AWARD: If a site has no national award winner in a division, then a site award will be given at that site in that division. Here is an example. If none of the seven highest scoring teams in Division A are at Penn State, then Penn State will award the highest scoring team competing at Penn State the site award for Division A. This is independent of the results in Division B.
TIEBREAKING RULE: The tiebreaking rule for teams receiving prizes (top nine teams in Division A and the top seven teams in B that tie) is as follows
- Tiebreaker #1 is the sum of the Team Round and Power Question.
- Tiebreaker #2 is the sum of the individual scores.
AWARDS ASSEMBLY: The Awards Assembly will begin soon after the Tie-Breakers and will probably be finished by 4:30 pm, EST. All teams should plan on staying for the entire assembly to honor the team and individual winners. Individual awards will be given to the top scorers in the meet and also to the high scorers on each team.
DOUGLAS CAMERON BAKER MEMORIAL AWARD: Through the generosity of family and friends of Douglas Cameron Baker, a former ARML participant who passed away in 2006, an award in his name has been established. Information for the criteria and method of applying will be posted soon. Applications are available on this website.
The Official Scorer
This Policy Has Been Clarified for ARML 2009
The Official Scorer will be in charge of ensuring that the proper teams are in Division A according to the rules. Click here for clarification. If an adjustment is necessary after the competition has begun, this change will take place immediately.
If a team is found to be in noncompliance with any of the ARML rules, the results will be corrected by the Official Scorer. For example, suppose that Wyoming has four teams competing at ARML; two teams in Division A and two teams in Division B. If one or more of Wyoming's teams in Division B scores higher than any of Wyoming's teams competing in Division A, then that team will immediately be moved to Division A and only be eligible for Division A awards.
The Official Scorer can make these correction before, during, or after the competition has concluded. After a final review by the Official Scorer, the results will be certified as official.
Miscellaneous Policies
ARML-NYSML BOOK AND ARML T-SHIRTS: ARML souvenirs will be on sale at all three ARML sites. If you wish to procure any of the problem books before the meet, please contact J. Bryan Sullivan, the ARML President (17 Woodside Drive, Sterling MA 01564; phone 978-422-6675; e-mail: jbsully@verizon.net).
SALE OF NON-ARML ITEMS Though ARML is clearly an excellent venue for coaches and students alike to share ideas, make contacts, and collaborate, the sale of non-ARML materials will not be allowed until after lunch on the Saturday of the competition.