International Regions Mathematics League (IRML)
An Introduction to IRML:
IRML stands for the International Regions Mathematics League. It is an extension of ARML which stands for the American Regions Mathematics League. ARML began in 1976 as a contest between all-star teams of 15 students each chosen from various regions such as the state of North Carolina, Montgomery County near Baltimore, or New York City. Because these teams have the best students in a region, ARML has always had interesting and challenging problems given in a variety of formats, some of which allow students to work together and some of which are individual in nature. Teams from Canada have been involved from almost the beginning and in the late 1980's ARML invited a team from Moscow to come to the US to participate. That led to teams from Taiwan, the Philippines, and Columbia participating in the States. ARML is an on-site competition. Currently, there are 4 regional sites--Penn State, the University of Georgia, the University of Iowa, and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Teams choose which site they want to attend but, of course, they choose the site that is the easiest to get to. Since it is very expensive for international teams to attend, ARML decided to have a competition via the Internet so that international teams could take the contest in their own country. That contest is called IRML. Currently, there are three divisions in the overall contest. One is called ARML and it is between American teams and is taken at one of the four sites. The other two belong to IRML, i.e., IRML has two divisions, one for the international teams that take the contest in America, and the other for international teams that take it in their home country.
The IRML problems are the same as the ARML problems. The ARML contest starts at 8 am Eastern Daylight Time on the first Saturday after Memorial Day in America. In 2010 the contest takes place on Saturday, June 5, 2010. We hope that the international teams can take the contest at about the same time as the American teams. For example, Turkey is 7 hours ahead of Penn State, so if Turkey begins at 2 or 3 in the afternoon on Saturday, June 5, then teams from Turkey would be taking the contest more or less at the same time as their American counterparts.
The contest is generally given in English but we have had some success in getting it translated. In 2008 we translated the contest into Chinese, Vietnamese, and Spanish.