Pi day is commonly celebrated in the US on March 14th, because in algorithms, this date is written 3/14, which is similar to Pi, 3.1415926536… Since we are an American School, we also celebrate this date since 2014, and this year, NHS and Math League wanted this event to be really memorable. According to Mr. B and Ms. Strickland, the main goal was to bring joy to the students and celebrate math. But were they successful?
From my personal experience, yes. They were really successful. Together with giving more importance to celebrating the date, they created a new element that completely revolutionized the dynamics of the event: a thermometer of prizes. This way, students got way more motivated to participate in the contest, because they could win prizes even if they had only memorized a few digits. Here is what they looked like:
The best part is that the prizes were cumulative, so if you achieved a certain level, you will also get the prizes from all of the levels below the one you reached. I memorized 32 digits of pi in 3 days, and I got candy and a lollipop, which makes me look forward to next year’s pi day, so I can beat my own record and get even more prizes.
Another key factor of this edition was that the person that recited the most digits would get to pie a teacher of their choice in the face. Yes! This was a genius idea because the mystery of knowing which teacher would be pied made everyone at school be aware of the event, and motivated students to try and reach super high scores. This year’s high score was 105 decimal places, achieved by Ana Carolina Okano, from 7th-grade blue. She chose to pie Ms. Tamara, contradicting the guesses that Mr. B and Ms. Strickland made: they both thought that Ms. Ruth was going to be pied. Ana Carolina’s score was not enough to beat the school’s record of 265 decimal places achieved by Julie Gougeuil, but it was enough to bring many students and staff to watch the incredible scene of Ms. Tamara getting pied. Here is some footage:
From interviewing participants and from my own experience with Pi day this year there are some elements that can be implemented to make the event even better: To add competitivity, the students who get at least 100 digits on the first round will go into the “finals” where they will recite the decimal places in front of other students, for added competitivity; a new level of achievement in the thermometer would be a 10% discount in the bake sale that takes place during the event, which would not only increase the number of participants but would also be a great marketing strategy for the fundraiser. With that, only good things can be said about it, the event was a success and I believe this is the beginning of a new era for this celebration.