Math Meet, Pi, Pizza, and finally Pies —A Great Renewed way to Celebrate a Transcendental Number

 Saturday March 14 was Pi Day (3.14).  What better excuse is there to have a celebration of math with middle schoolers than π?     On the Monday before Pi Day, students, teachers, and high school Math Club members celebrated π  at Somerville High School by eating pizza while spending an afternoon taking a math contest written by the high school math team and then estimating, creating, answering questions, and ending with Table Talk Pies for everyone.

The Somerville High School Math Club led by Michael Morgan organized the event.  Instead of the usual math contest between Somerville’s middle schools’ math teams for the month of March, they invited the schools to come and have students take a math contest related to pi and circles written by the high schoolers and do some of the pi night activities the Somerville Math Fund has organized in the pre-pandemic past.  While the eight graders took the contest the seventh did the Pi activities and then the groups switched.

While enjoying pizza donated by the Somerville Math Fund, the students from the students from the Healey School, the East Somerville Community School, and the West Somerville Neighborhood school went around to a variety of pi math activities set up in the Lower Cafeteria at the High School.  

These activities included: predicting bicycle wheel roll distance after one and a half revolutions, a guessing contest, π button design, π facts quiz, finding your birthday in π, drawing a cardioid or nephroid (curves from lines), and predicting circumferences in MM by feel of objects in mystery boxes.

Even though the Somerville Math Fund sponsored math night event was canceled by the pandemic for three years, three years ago there were Somerville High School Math Club members who commented about remembering doing some of these events when they went over to either the Healey (2019) or the East Somerville (2018) for the Pi Family math night.  So for the last three years, the Math Club organized the Pi day celebration and repeated the event this year at the high school for the middle school students.

Scott Weaver (East), Wil Jacques (Healey) brought students and helped Erica Voolich (Somerville Mathematics Fund) organize the activities for the event.  Also bringing students was Joon Pahk from West.

In addition, Scott Weaver at the East Somerville Community School  and Wil Jacques at Healey each organized a day of math/pi activities in all of his classes on Pi Day. All the East and Healey  middle school students enjoyed Table Talk Pies to fuel their exploration of Pi and circles. 

Table Talk Pies of Worcester generously supplied small pies for all who came that afternoon.  Table Talk has generously supported this Somerville Math Fund event for twenty-two years (2 years off for Covid). When planning the first SMF π Night in 2003; the Math Fund called the Table Talk Pi Company and explained what π day was and Table Talk generously donated large pies for prizes and small pies for everyone.  Twenty-three years later, Table Talk Pies is not only still donating to the Somerville Pi night celebration, but also to many more celebrations.   This year Table Talk donated about 60,000 pies to schools and organizations celebrating Pi Day.

A big thank you to all the Math Club volunteers and donors who made this fun, educational event possible.  It takes a community to celebrate π day!

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, was founded in 2000 with the mission to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville, MA.  They will award renewable college mathematics scholarships in May and in January they awarded K-12 Teacher Grants.  Also, they hold a high school engineering challenge (Scrapheap Showdown) in October.  For more information, to make a donation, or to volunteer, visit www.somervillemathematicsfund.org or mathfund@gmail.com or call 617-666-0666.

The Link to this page is https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2026/03/math-meet-pi-pizza-and-finally-pies.html

Time to apply for Scholarships for the next school year

What are YOUR answers to these 3 easy questions:

1. Are you a senior in high school?

2. Do you live in Somerville MA?

3. Are you a good student in math and/or science?

If your answer to those questions were yes, yes, and yes, then you are eligible to apply for a Somerville Math Fund scholarship.

https://somervillemathematicsfund.org/somerville-math/

The scholarship is for $1500 a year for 4 years for someone taking math or math-using or math-applying classes in college.

If you have a child or friend who might qualify, share this link:

https://somervillemathematicsfund.org/somerville-math/

The deadline is coming soon so DO THIS TODAY, the deadline is on March 20th.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts.  Over twenty-five years (a quarter century!), the Somerville Math Fund has awarded a total of $787,000 in four-year mathematics scholarships to one hundred fifty-six students and $176,065 in teacher grants supporting four hundred forty-two teachers’ projects in the city of Somerville along with emergency grants to East Somerville teachers after the devastating school fire.

To make a donation go to www.somervillemathematicsfund.org

For questions email mathfund@gmail.com

Have a Great Idea on How to Teach Math? These Teachers Do!

Many teachers have great ideas on how to make their classrooms a better place for their  students to learn math.  The teachers’ ideas frequently outrun the budget schools have for supplies and their own ability to subsidize their classroom.  The Somerville Mathematics Fund tries to fill this need through the generosity of their donors with grants of up to  $500.

The Morris S & Florence H Bender Foundation,  Jasper and Jay, Mr & Mrs Donald McGoldrick,  Julie Schneider, and the Winter Hill Bank, each sponsored a teachers’ grants.  The rest of the grants were funded thanks to the combined generosity of everyone who contributed to the Math Fund’s annual fundraiser.  The following teachers won grants to encourage and support mathematics achievement in the classrooms of Somerville.

The following teachers won grants to encourage and support mathematics achievement in the classrooms of Somerville.

 The Math Fund wants to thank the Morris S & Florence Bender Foundation for generously underwriting the following teacher grants:

• Tahlia Brazdaluz, Argenziano School (K), Math Manipulatives and Tools

• Jayne Campos, Argenziano School (1st), Magnetic 10 Frame, Easel White Board Compatible

• Kayla Coleman, Argenziano School (1st), 10 Frames & 10 Frames Dry Erase Boards

• Samantha Ford, Argenziano School (3rd), Posters, Charts & Organizing Materials

• Diana Garity, Argenziano School (2nd SEI Newcomers), Grid & Plain Easel Pads and Dry Erase Sheets

• Rachel Graubart, Argenziano School (1st Shelter English Immersion), Family Math Night Introducing Math Games

• Molly Harrington, Argenziano School (2nd SEI Inclusion), Half-moon Table

• Alyssa Mackey, Argenziano, Brown and Kennedy Schools (K-8 Math Coach), Math Manipulatives & Materials

• Erin McGovern, Argengiano School (3rd), Chart Materials, Magnetic Manipulatives, & Storage

• Gianna Melone, Argenziano School (2nd), Kidney Shaped Table

• Michele Moreno, Argenziano School (4th), Wipeboard Materials and Math Manipulatives

• Halley Snelling, Argenziano School (2nd), Carpet Blocks & Easel Pads

• Ava Strezynski, Argenziano School (K), Math Manipulatives

• Diana Young, Argenziano School (1st), Family Math Games Night

• Christina Carroll, Brown School (K), Magnetic 10 Frames, Laminating & Protection Materials

• Johanna Cooney, Brown School (1st), Pinkcat Games, Materials & Supplies

• Francine Davis, Brown School (5th Math & Science), Math Games & Manipulatives

• Stephanie Vassillion, Brown School (K), Organizational Materials

• Julie Jones & Lauren McGlashing, Capuano School (K), Family Math Night

• Katie Dickson, Kennedy School (Life Skills), Touchmath

The Math Fund wants to thank each of the following for generously underwriting a teacher grant:

Jasper & Jay: 

• Jessica Greenberg, East Somerville Community School (2nd), Wipebooks & Math Supplies

Mr. & Mrs. Donald McGoldrick:

• Eleanore MacLean, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (3rd), Math Manipulatives & Supplies

Julie Schneider:

• Julie Scafidi, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (7th & 8th Math), iRespond Lite Clickers

• Priya Thelapurath, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (Newcomer Academy Math Teacher 6th-8th), Math Manipulatives

The Winter Hill Bank:

• Tzu-Ting Han, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (1st), Math Games & Supplies

These Teacher Grants were funded by the many generous donors who together contributed enough in our annual  fundraiser to support all of them.  There is power in donations of many sizes coming together to support the larger whole.

• Heidi Given, District Wide Interventionist, Math Manipulatives

• Karen Kolman, District Math Interventionist, Materials for Integrow Numeracy Solutions

• Catherine Oldshue, Healey School (4th), White Boards and Manipulatives

• Katie Starbuck, Healey School (Math Coach), Building Thinking Classrooms Healey Teacher Professional Development

• Kayla Burgess, West Somerville Neighborhood School (6th Math & Science), Graph White Boards and Math Games

• Erin McDonald, West Somerville Neighborhood School (2nd), WipeBooks & Materials

• Dylan Sylvester, West Somerville Neighborhood School (7th & 8th Math), Calculators & Sticky Chart Paper

• Brenda Williams, West Somerville Neighborhood School (K), Math Manipulatives & Materials

• Kristin Day, Winter Hill Community Innovation School, (5th Math & Science), Charts, White Boards & Game Materials

• Swetha Kaluri, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (Math Interventionist), Materials for Integrow Numeracy Solutions

• Andrea Palmer, Winter Hill Community Innovation School (K-8 Math Coach), Math Manipulatives

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts.  Over twenty-five years (a quarter century!), the Somerville Math Fund has awarded $176,065 in teacher grants supporting four hundred forty-two teachers’ projects in the city of Somerville along with emergency grants to East Somerville teachers after the devastating school fire.

In late March, the fund will be seeking applications from students who reside in Somerville for college mathematics scholarships.  Links to the scholarship application form is available at  www.somervillemathematicsfund.org   For more information, to volunteer or to make a tax-deductible contribution, please contact Erica Voolich (617-666-0666 or mathfund@gmail.com).

The link to this page is: https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2026/01/have-great-idea-on-how-to-teach-math.html

Time for Somerville MA Teachers to get their Applications for Math Grants Together

  Every year the Somerville Mathematics Fund offers teacher grants for K-12 teachers in Somerville who have interesting and exciting ideas to support math learning and enrichment for their students.  The grant is open to teachers in all of the schools in Somerville, both public and parochial.  The grant application is on the Somerville Math Fund website and is due by January 7, 2024.

The maximum amount of any grant is $500 per year.  Previous winners are welcome to apply again as long as they have completed their report on the previous grant.  You can read about some previous year’s grant winners on the Somerville Math Fund blog  or by requesting a PDF copy of this year’s annual newsletter which was mailed in early December.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund, was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts.  Over twenty-five years, the math fund has awarded  $162,158 in teacher grants in the city of Somerville.  You might want to listen to our  TEDxSomerville talk on the work of the Somerville Math Fund to learn about the various things the math fund is doing.

On March 20th, the Somerville Math Fund will be seeking applications from students who reside in Somerville for college mathematics scholarships.

The teacher grant application is available on https://somervillemathematicsfund.org/teacher-grants/


For more information, to volunteer or to make a tax-deductible contribution, please contact Erica (617-666-0666 or mathfund@gmail.com)

The link to blog post is https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2025/11/time-for-somerville-ma-teachers-to-get.html

Video Link for Scrapheap Showdown 2025, "Ready, Aim, Flier"

 The Scrapheap Showdown 2025, Ready Aim Flier,  was video taped by Bill Trudell.  Read the blog post.

 Enjoy the video of Scrapheap Showdown 2025, filmed by Bill Trudell ane produced by Joe Constantine and uploaded YouTubd for EdTV for Somerville.

Scrapheap Showdown: "Ready, Aim, Flier!"

 Scrapheap Showdown: Ready, Aim, Flier!

by Erica Dakin Voolich

On October 19th, 16 high school students on six teams gathered in the Breed Memorial Hall at Tufts University to compete in the Somerville Math Fund’s 19th annual Scrapheap Showdown, “Ready, Aim. Flier”.  Our first Scrapheap Showdown was actually 21 years ago in 2005 — we had a hiatus due to COVID.  In the spring of 2005, a group of Somerville High School students came to a meeting to brainstorm ideas for a fun fundraiser to replace a walk around a lake that was ending.  They suggested we do a junkyards war like they watched on TV.  I couldn’t imagine sending students into any of the many junkyards nears Union Square then, so instead we created our own Scrapheap pile that board member Richard Graf collected some unique items from closed mills where he knew the owners.

This year’s problem was to build a catapult.  There were three challenges that would hurl a marble inside a balloon (for breaks on rolling) or a pingpong ball in three different events for distance and accuracy.  The first challenge was distance across the event room floor.  The second was aiming at empty seltzer bottles lined up on the floor. The third was all teams together aiming pingpong balls into a wading pool.  The final event was the two winning teams aiming at a bullseye on the other team’s table.

The usual pile of interesting “junk” was in the scrapheap in the middle of the room.  They built and tested their catapults on bases so they could move them around for the competitions.

The students worked for three hours and then it was time to test their catapults.

The scoring was keeping track of points or distance and then teams who were first got 1, 2nd got 2, and so forth with the lowest score at the end of the day winning.

The first challenge was The Range War: distance.  Each team had three marbles in balloons.  Each team had their own color.  So each team would shoot for distance all three, and then pick up the two closest ones and leave the furthest on the floor.  After all 6 teams went it was easy to see who was 1st, 2nd, 3rd, all the way to 6th and points were assigned: 1 for 1st, 2 for 2nd, etc.

The second challenge was The Knockout:  each team was aiming marbles in balloons at soda water bottles, 10 feet away.  There was a little bit of water in the bottom, so bottles were hit but not knocked over.  They had all the marbles from all the teams and were trying to shoot at the bottles as many marbles as they could in 1 minute.  

The third challenge was The Accuracy Duel:  all the teams moved their tables in a big circle around a child’s wading pool and they were each shooting their 10 ping pong balls at the target.  There was a  bonus if you got your ball not only into the pool but in the bucket in the middle.

After the points were all totaled and the two top scorers were identified, The Power Puff Girls and Sleeze,  then there was a final round: High Noon.

The first two teams were facing each other with a paper bulls eyed pasted on the table under the catapults.  The 2nd place team chose the distance, the 1st place team fired one shot, and hit the target!  Since the first place team hit the other one on the first shot, no need to move the tables  one foot closer together, and that round was over.

The first place team had won the first and second events and was 4th in the third.  The second place team was first in the 3rd event, and 2nd in the first and 4th in the second.  The third place team came in 4th, then 2nd and 3rd.  The fourth place team came in 6th, 3rd, and 2nd

First place was “Power Puff Girls”  (Hannah Baxter, Evelyn Mertl Kime, Gina Chagnon)

Second place was “Sleeze”  (Yuvraj Rattan, Gaurav Hastir, Zaib Khan)

Third Place was “The No Name Team”  (Casper Newbury, Annabelle Foster, Isa Donovan-DeKlerk)

Fourth Place was “Pythagorean Theorem” (Anya Rajbanshi, Nimra Sheikh, Margaret Dew)

The teams chose their prizes in the order they finished.  The prizes donated were three sets of two tickets to the RedSox (donated by Sam Voolich) for a game in April 2025, and gift cards donated by Charlie’s Kitchen in Harvard Sq. and Dragon Pizza in Davis Sq, and along with Target cards from an anonymous donor.

The other participating teams were “Led Dice” (Sanskar Acharya, Sushant Sharma)

and “2 1/2 Robotics Kids” (Jacob Soltysiak, Sage Milbury, Silas Wickenden) 

and “134/2 Calculator Crusaders 134/2”  (Keshav Bhargo, Raghav Kaushal).

Designers and refiners of the challenge were members of the Somerville Math Fund Board: Fred Bernardin, Sanford Bogage, Adam Foster, Richard Graf, Monica Fernandes, Jay Landers, Dan Oshima, Erica Voolich, Susan Weiss.  Amy Weiss designed the teeshirt and Monica designed the sponsor flyer; and Susan and Sanford designed the student recruiting and registration materials, and Sanford managed registration for this event.  For general pictures from the event check out this link.

Michael Morgan (Math Team) and Patricia Murphy-Sheehy (Head of Math Department) at Somerville High helped with suggestions and distribution help of registration materials.  The math teachers at Somerville High School, recruited student teams.  Bill Trudell videoed the event for Somerville Cable EdTV Channel 15.  Enjoy the video of the event uploaded to YouTube produced by Joe Constantine by EdTV for Somerville.

Again Tufts University was our wonderful host donating their event space for a Sunday event. This was our 19th Scrapheap Showdown and Tufts has been our host for all of these events.  

Thanks to our generous sponsors, this activity was both a fund raiser for a scholarship and three teacher grants, provided prizes for the students and allowed the students to participate without paying any registration fee as students did in the earlier years.  We offered different levels of sponsorship for the event.  

Thanks to all of our wonderful donors whose donations will make first years of three of our renewable scholarships available next spring and four teacher grants in January.

Gold Level (one year of a college scholarship): East Cambridge Savings Bank, Jasper J. Lawson, PhD. & Associates, and Tufts University.

Silver Level (one teacher grant): Jay & Jasper, Mr. & Mrs. Donald F. McGoldrick, Julie Schneider, and the Winter Hill Bank.

Bronze Level  (supporting Somerville Math Fund work): Midé Technology Corp, a couple of long term anonymous sponsors, and Sam Voolich.

The Somerville Mathematics Fund was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage mathematics achievement in Somerville.  This is our 25th year!  On January 7th, we will be processing teacher grant applications for up to $500 for math classroom materials. In March, we will be processing scholarship applications for our renewable $1500/year math and science scholarships.   For more information or to volunteer or to make a donation, call 617-666-0666, e-mail mathfund@gmail.com, or go to www.somervillemathematicsfund.org.

The link to this post is https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2025/10/scrapheap-showdown-ready-aim-flier.html

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming!

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming ... time to get your teams together.  Get two more friends and register your team.  Choose a crazy name for the team and then all come on October 19th to Breed Memorial Hall on Tufts University at 51 Winthrop St Medford -- a new location last year!

After two years off for the Pandemic, Scrapheap Showdown came back 3 years ago  Here are the videos of  2022's Scrapheap Showdown, Good Vibrations  and  2023's Scrapheap Showdown Marble Mayhem and 2024 2024's Catch My Drift.  These were all produced by Somerville EdTV, Joseph Constantine and videoed by Bill Trudell.

The Somerville Math Fund's annual high school engineering challenge is coming on Sunday October 19th.  It will be held at Breed Memorial Hall, at 51 Winthrop St on Tufts University in Medford.  Sign-in is at noon.  

But you must register before online here before October 3rd. 

Teams of three will arrive to discover what will be their challenge to build this year.  If you're interested in seeing some of the previous years' projects check out to links to the videos above.

To compete you must be a high school student living in Somerville MA. Click here to register.  Somerville high school students are encouraged to register and participate.

Start organizing your team NOW, the registration is due on Friday October 3rd

In the past, the teams not only came up with creative names for their teams, but they also came up with interesting creative solutions to the annual challenges.  We always have great prizes.

Go forth and form your teams of three!

Scrapheap Showdown is Coming ... time to get your teams together.  Get two more friends and register your team.  Choose a crazy name for the team and then all come on October 19th to Tufts U, Breed Memorial Hall, 51 Winthrop Street Medford.

Good Luck!

The link to this post is:  https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2025/09/scrapheap-showdown-is-coming.html