Swarthmore Math & Stats Estimathon

October 23rd, 3:00-4:30pm EST, on Zoom Meeting ID: 87500073420


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Sample Estimathon Questions


  1. To date, how many Pokemon have there been (in all generations)?
  2. How many pieces of art are displayed in the Louvre?
  3. What the highest number of appearances by a school in the Women's NCAA Final Four?
  4. What is the surface area, in square miles, of the Atlantic Ocean?
  5. How many benches are in Central Park?

Rules

Overview

Your team will have 30 minutes to work on 13 estimation problems. The answer to each problem is a positive number. Your team will submit intervals for each problem. Intervals may not contain negative numbers or zero.

You may not use the internet, or your calculator/smartphone, or any other type of external reference material.

Scoring

An interval is good if it contains the correct answer. After the time limit is over, the final score for your team will be:
\[ \left ( 10 + \sum_{\text{good intervals}} \frac{\text{upper bound}}{\text{lower bound}} \right ) \cdot 2^{\# \text{questions} - \# \text{good intervals}} \] rounded up to the nearest whole number. That is, for every problem you get wrong (or leave blank), your score doubles.

The winning team is the team with the lowest score.

Submitting intervals

Every team can submit up to 18 total intervals. The lower bound should be below the quantity to estimate, and the upper bound should be above the quantity to estimate. For instance, if you are estimating the number 100, you might enter a lower bound of 60 and an upper bound of 978.

Re-submitting

Given that each team has 18 allowed submissions and that there are only 13 problems, it is possible to submit intervals for a given quantity more than once. If you do this, the best interval (i.e., the smallest ratio) will be the one which counts toward your score.

(Adapted from this website.)