Congratulations to Minnesota’s 2026 Champion Mathletes!
MATHCOUNTS 2026 State Competition – a festival of Pi and all things math
128 mathletes, the top six percent of Minnesota’s middle school math stars, gathered at the Crown Plaza Minneapolis West March 13 -14 for the 2026 State MATHCOUNTS Competition.
They spent Friday, March 13, getting to know each other, constructing and testing catapults and competing for awards for best-performing catapults. They topped off Friday night with dessert (pie, of course) donated by the Minnesota Council of Teachers of Mathematics in recognition of the mathematical constant Pi (3.14) and its Day March 14.
Friday’s catapult contest and dessert were a relaxing transition to Saturday’s intense competitions, including three morning rounds of team and individual testing, followed by the afternoon’s Countdown Round a fast-paced, head-to-head bracket format contest. Students compete in pairs in rounds of up to 45 seconds per question until a winner is determined.
One question used in a 2025 MATHCOUNTS Competition is shown below.
The number 2025, which is equal to 34×52, has the property that the product of its distinct prime factors is also the number of factors it has. What is the least positive integer with at least two distinct prime factors with this property?
Building and testing catapults posed engineering challenges for mathletes
Friday night 59 teams competed in a catapult-building contest. The teams of two were given a kit of supplies and had 20 minutes to build a catapult and another 20 minutes to project a tiny koosh ball as accurately as possible to knock down a pyramid of cups and then as far as possible.
- Ansh Mohapatra of Dakota Meadows Middle School & Jackson Blom of Dassel-Cokato Middle School made up the third place team. Height Difference
- Anh-Na Le & Diya Verma of Saint Paul Academy and Summit Schools made up the econd place team, which they named Slaylicious Queens
- Kyle Parmenter of Valley View Middle School & Min-Yi Cao of Wayzata Central Middle School made up the first place team, Irrationals. The teams had 20 minutes to build a catapult and 20 more to use it knock down a pyramid of paper cups with a very small koosh ball.
The top four scoring mathletes at the Minnesota State MATHCOUNTS Competition will advance to the National MATHCOUNTS Competition and make up our Minnesota 2026 national team.
Margaret Schlukebier, Valley View Middle School Coach, returns this year as National Team Coach.
Top 6 Individuals:
- Ahmed Ilyasov, Valley View Middle School
- Arnav Hiremath, Wayzata Central Middle School
- Yuhao Shi, Kellogg Middle School
- Branden Qiao, Wayzata East Middle School
- Shreyaan Patil, Wayzata Central Middle School
- Kate Gao, Saint Paul Academy And Summit School
Team Results:
First Place: Wayzata East Middle School
- Hrithvik Kethireddy
- Dev Neelamegam
- Branden Qiao
- Yufeng Xu
Coach: Katie Gjevre
Second Place: Valley View Middle School
- Ahmed Ilyasov
- Kyle Parmenter
- Alexander Yang
- Sophia Zeng
Coach: Meg Schlukebier
Third Place: Wayzata Central Middle School
- Min-Yi Cao
- Shreyaan Patil
- Max Wang
- Jimmy Zhai
Coach: Cathy Huang
Fourth Place: Lake Middle School
- Kevin Nie
- Summer Liu
- Adiran Lu
- Youchan Song
Coach: Qihong Nie
The Minnesota State MATHCOUNTS team is now gearing up for the national competition.
Congratulations to all the competitors, volunteers, and supporters of this year’s Minnesota MATHCOUNTS State Competition! Your hard work, passion, and enthusiasm for mathematics continue to inspire us all.
Thank you to the dedicated volunteers who help make MATHCOUNTS happen. The Minnesota Society of Professional Engineers has been bringing MATHCOUNTS to Minnesota since 1984.
Stay tuned for updates about Team Minnesota’s adventures at the national competition.