Problemsetting
I enjoy writing problems.
This page contains a list of problems I’ve written that have appeared on competitive programming and math contests – mainly the Montgomery Blair Informatics Tournament and the Harvard MIT Math Tournament. The problems I think are the coolest appear in bold. I have given each problem a subjective difficulty score, from I to V (easiest to hardest).
Updated 12/26/22
Competitive Programming
| Contest | Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| mBIT 2019F Varsity #3 | Mountain Mileage | II |
| mBIT 2020S Standard #9 | Bracelets | I |
| mBIT 2020S Advanced #6 | Gorilla Grouping | II |
| mBIT 2020S Advanced #7 | Hen Hackers | III |
| mBIT 2020S Advanced #8 | Platypus Puddles | IV |
| mBIT 2020F Standard #3 | Explorers | I |
| mBIT 2020F Advanced #2 | Stone Piles | II |
| mBIT 2020F Advanced #5 | Locked in the Past | III |
| mBIT 2020F Advanced #6 | Night of the Candles | II |
| mBIT 2020F Advanced #7 | Gemstones | IV |
| mBIT 2020F Advanced #8 | Flock of Rams | III |
| mBIT 2020F Advanced #11 | Sphinx Economics1 | V |
| mBIT 2020F Advanced #12 | Building Atlantis | V |
| mBIT 2021S Standard #9 | Grid Shuffling | III |
| mBIT 2021S Standard #11 | Rabbit Subtraction | III |
| mBIT 2021S Advanced #5 | Knockout Tournament | III |
| mBIT 2021S Advanced #6 | Squid Art | IV |
| mBIT 2021S Advanced #8 | Future Gadget Lab | IV |
| mBIT 2021S Advanced #9 | Immortality Potion | IV |
| mBIT 2021S Advanced #10 | Luigi’s Mansion | V |
| mBIT 2021S Advanced #12 | Pillar Path | V |
| mBIT 2022S Advanced #8 | Rating Report | III |
Math
| Contest | Description | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| MBMT 2020 Team #7 | Even sum but not even product | I |
| MBMT 2020 Team #11 | Maximum self-intersections of an ant path | I |
| MBMT 2020 Team #20 | Rotationally distinct but not symmetric | II |
| MBMT 2020 Team #22 | Product of solutions | II |
| MBMT 2020 Team #31 | Growing spike sequence | II |
| HMMT 2021 Nov General #5 | Probability three chords make a triangle | II |
| HMMT 2021 Nov General #8 | Simple routes on eight points | III |
| HMMT 2021 Nov Guts #20 | Three mutually-attacking queens on a chessboard | I |
| HMMT 2021 Nov Guts #26 | Binary tree sequences | IV |
| HMMT 2022 Feb Combo #3 | HMMT string operations | II |
| HMMT 2022 Feb Combo #7 | Spiral paths | IV |
| HMMT 2022 Feb Combo #8 | Smallest common prefix sum | V |
| HMMT 2022 Feb Guts #11 | Inscribed dodecagon | I |
| HMMT 2022 Feb Guts #24 | Manhattan distance in Sierpinski Carpet | IV |
| HMMT 2022 Feb Guts #26 | Random war card game | V |
| HMMT 2022 Nov Team #2 | Covering a unit disk | I |
| HMMT 2022 Nov Team #10 | Circle painting | IV |
| HMMT 2023 Feb Guts #25 | Spikiness | IV |
-
Co-written with Timothy Qian. This problem was featured on FiveThirtyEight’s puzzling blog, The Riddler. ↩