Math enthusiasts from 13 schools visited the Harker middle school campus on March 4 for the 16th annual Diana Nichols Math Invitational, in which about 300 students competed, according to math teacher Vandana Kadam.

In the grade 6 individual competition, Harker students claimed all of the top five spots, with Aniketh Tummala placing first, Ethan Liu coming in second, Heidi Lu earning third, Emma Gao placing fourth and Angelina Hu placing fifth. Harker also did well in grade 7 individual, where Stephen Xia took second and Rohan Bhowmik placed fifth. David Dai placed first in the grade 8 individual event to give Harker another top placement.

A total of 50 teams competed in the team event, which was also highly competitive. Harker’s “6R” team of Maria Chrysafis, Varun Fuloria, Emma Gao, Angelina Hu, Ethan Liu, Aniketh Tummala and Michelle Wei took second in the sixth grade category, in which the “6S” team of Ramit Goyal, Chloe Lee, Heidi Lu, Claire Luo, Julie Shi, Cynthia Wang and Ella Yee placed third. In the grade 7 team event, Tiffany Chang, Amruta Dharmapurikar, Alex Lan, Krish Maniar, Ashley Ruan, Grant Sims and Stephen Xia took second place. David Dai, Alice Feng, Angela Jia, Sasvath Ramachandran, Rohan Thakur, Clarice Wang and Emily Zhou earned second place in the grade 8 team event.

The yearly estimation contest challenged students to guess the total number of Harker Math Invitational participants from 2002 to 2017. Thornton Junior High School’s Larry Zhi won the contest with an estimate of 4,040, just shy of the actual number of 4,045! The next closest guess was made by Harker student Angela Jia, grade 8, who estimated 4022.