Deep within the belly of Wubben Hall, nerds in the Math Club gather on a Friday evening for “Family Feud” night. Faculty and students gather in Wubben 112, eating free pizza and waiting in anticipation for senior, club officer, applied math major Mikel Kratzer’s game night.

“Part of my job of being an officer is I help plan fun events and activities for the meetings,”   Kratzer said. “For this game night, I reached out to people on Discord and Reddit and asked them math-related questions. With their help, I aggregated their answers for a ‘Family Feud’ math game.”

Among the attendees to the game night were several assistant professors of mathematics, Dr. Dania Morales , Dr. Megan Wendler & Dr. Matthew D’Amico. The staff and students were divided into teams of two while Kratzer laid out the rules of “Family Feud”. 

The rules were simple. Before the game, survey questions were asked to anonymous users on Reddit & Discord communities. The questions were all math themed, like: “Who do you think is the most influential mathematician?” Their responses  were then used as answers for the game. During the game, two teams are prompted with the question that was asked in the anonymous survey. One person from each team must try their best to guess what the most common answer to that question was. If the guessing team guesses a correct answer, they are awarded points.

“What is the best number?” is prompted to the teams. One person from each team walks to the front of the classroom to give an answer. The first team yelled  “3.14!” 

“3.14 is…. not on the board,” Kratzer said. He squeezed every moment of anticipation out of delivering the final answer.  

“69!” Shouted a student from team 2. 

“69 is…. on the board!” Katzer replied and uproarious cheers penetrated the usually non-social hallways of Wubben.
“What are math majors strangely bad at?” Katzer asked next. 

“This might be a self-report, but…showering!” D’Amico said jokingly. , “Showering is…. not on the board!” Kratzer replied.

Club president pure math, applied math and physics major (yes, literally three majors) senior Able Martinez, said he wants the club to be inclusive and entertaining.

“I want Math Club to be a place where people can make friends and learn more about math. I want to show them that it’s not all boring classes and scary symbols. Math can be really fun,” Martinez said.

Club advisor Dr. Megan Wendler concurred:
“Math Club is meant to be a fun, welcoming community where people can come and learn some really cool things about math. […] Every Spring, [Math Club] organizes a Math Extravaganza event. 150 to 200 high-school students come to CMU for the day for activities that are organized and planned by the math club.” Dr. Wendler said.

This year’s Math Extravaganza will be its 28th anniversary. On Tues March 10th in the UC, an all-day event where high schoolers from Mesa County are invited to campus to engage in fun math activities. The club is looking for volunteers for the event. If you’re interested, the Math Club invites you to attend March 6. Orientation at 3p.m. in Wubben 112.