Borehamwood students advance to finals in prestigious international maths competition

A combination of maths smarts and creative thinking has added up to a spot in the finals for the team, whose submission was selected as one of the best solutions to the escalating crises of extreme heat and power grid failures, which governments are working to mitigate.

The students – Devarshi Mandal, Rajarshi Mandal, Aryan Prabhudesai, Dawei Tao, and Oliver West of Borehamwood-based Haberdashers' Boys' School– make up one of the nine finalist teams in MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge (M3 Challenge), a unique competition that drew more than 3,600 11th and 12th graders in the U.S. and sixth form students in the U.K. this year. The team, whose work underwent intense scrutiny by judges in the first two rounds of assessment, has one last hurdle when they head to New York City on April 28 to present their findings to a panel of professional mathematicians for final validation.

Using mathematical modeling, students had to come up with solutions to real-world questions: How can we predict the indoor temperature of non-air-conditioned urban dwellings during a heat wave? How much demand should a power grid be prepared to handle during the summer months? Will this demand change over time? Can cities minimize the effects of a heat wave or a power grid failure?

Now in its 20th year, M3 Challenge is a program of Philadelphia-based Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and is sponsored by MathWorks. It spotlights applied mathematics as a powerful problem-solving tool and motivates students to consider further education and careers in applied math, computational and data sciences, and technical computing. Winning teams will be awarded a share of £75,000in scholarships, with the champion team receiving £16,000.

A total of 794 teams submitted papers detailing their recommendations. Roughly 55% of those submissions included technical computing to support and enhance their solutions, and those coding skills make them eligible for additional scholarship prizes.

“Heat waves are not just uncomfortable, they can be quite dangerous,” said Dr. Karen Bliss, Senior Manager of Education and Outreach at SIAM. “In many locations, air conditioning is not a luxury, but a necessity, since heat stress can exacerbate underlying illnesses in vulnerable populations.”

“Unfortunately, mass use of air conditioning puts a strain on the electrical grid and resulting power outages can be devastating,” Bliss explained. “Cities and rural areas alike will benefit from having plans in place for managing energy demands and caring for citizens who need support during heat waves.”

The team’s coach, mathematics teacher Kim Harrison, said that she is “delighted to see how well my students performed in M3 Challenge. They worked tirelessly to upskill their coding and mathematics to be able to successfully complete the mathematical modeling problem. In addition, they developed their teamwork, communication, and project-based skills, leading to an overall enriching experience.”

Team member Oliver West said that he found M3 Challenge to be an enjoyable experience, perfect for math enthusiasts like himself and his teammates. “As a group of maths fans, what could be better than 14 intense hours of maths modeling? There is nothing quite like the feeling of successfully applying awesome maths techniques to an interesting problem, and teaming up with friends to take on M3 Challenge made the experience even better.”

In addition to Haberdashers' Boys' School, the other finalists include students from Winchester College in Winchester, Hampshire, and from U.S. schools in Durham, North Carolina; Houston, Texas; Mason, Ohio; Oakton, Virginia; Rye, New York; Winter Park, Florida; and Zionsville, Indiana.

For more information about M3 Challenge, visit https://m3challenge.siam.org/the-challenge/.

To access this year’s challenge problem, visit https://m3challenge.siam.org/2025-problem/.

To see the full list of finalist, semi-finalist, and honorable mention teams, visit https://m3challenge.siam.org/wp-content/uploads/M3_Winners_2025_pre_final_event.pdf.