Although the once-in-a-century Pi Day ’15 (3/14/15) was on a weekend this time, it was still a highlight of math season at Magnet. The day before happened to be Friday the thirteenth, hence the theme for Academic Magnet’s fifth annual Pi Day celebration: Pi Day the Thirteenth. AMHS Pi Week festivities started on Wednesday with the Pi Day relay race, in which sixteen teams of three students ran around the campus for a total of 3.14 miles per team. The winners were Trace Hall (12), Kyle McGue (11), Will Bridgham (11), Carly Hall (9), and Caroline Seymour (9). Meanwhile, thirty-two students competed in the basketball shootout. Thomas McNerrey (9) won in overtime, and the runner-up was Seth Dominiak (9).

The following day, over twenty students recited digits of pi. Teachers Ms. Padgett and Ms. Cornehl hurried to keep track of the 460 digits recited by winner Jameson Sanders (11), who had also won in this event as a freshman. Vaibhav Mohanty (12), last year’s winner, was runner-up with 380 digits. In third place, with 330 digits, was Evan Sanders (9). Several reciters are pictured in the slideshow above.

On Friday the thirteenth, a parade of students, donning costumes or purple t-shirts featuring Jason Voorhees from the Friday the Thirteenth movie series, walked 1.14 miles around the campus. A new development this year was that each participant received a ticket to deposit in the bucket on the course labeled with his or her teacher’s name. From each bucket, a ticket was drawn and the winner received a prize, raffle-style. When the walkers returned, a concert of pi-themed, student-written songs began. Next, Vaibhav and Jameson rapped the digits of pi to Evan Camp’s (12) drum beat, mixing music with academics. Over the week, teachers from all departments judged posters, cards, songs, poems, and videos submitted by students in honor of Pi Day. The winning submissions were Chris Sacha’s (12) poem, Selina Pi’s (12) poster, Alec Robinovitz’s (10) video, Zoe Norris’ (12) card, Emmaleigh Effird’s (9) costume, and Maddie Steen (11), John Pavlides (11), and Tony Reda’s (11) live song.

Thanks to all the students, teachers, and parents who helped out during Pi Week and made it a fun success!