Test your problem-solving skills in math, physics, biology, chemistry, linguistics, and computer science, and qualify for admission to SigmaCamp 2021!
Check POM home page for more information.
On behalf of the Sigma Staff, we are delighted to share with you that SigmaCamp 2020 is going virtual! We are working on retaining many aspects of the traditional Sigma experience, while taking advantage of new opportunities. We are excited about how the program is taking shape, and will share details with you soon, including the much-anticipated list of semilabs... Read more below.
The opening lecture and Q&A on freedom of speech by Nadine Strossen was a big success last week. The next Q&A session will take place via Zoom on May 8th at 4pm EST:
From Inscribed Worlds to Non-Euclidean Geometry: History and Geometry of Kepler's Laws
by Roman Bezrukavnikov
This Spring, Sigma Camp is starting a new feature: Q&A with Sigma Lecturers.
We have made recordings of some of the lectures given at SigmaCamp 2019. Now, for the first time, we are making these recordings available for those who missed it in August 2019! Moreover, the lecturers have agreed to hold a Questions and Answers session, so you can watch the lecture and then ask questions or just chat with the lecturer (over Zoom)!
Our first event of this series will be on Tuesday, April 28:
Freedom of Speech: Basic Principles and Current Controversies
by Nadine Strossen
Because of the uncertainty caused by COVID19 pandemic, we are changing some of our deadlines. Please click the "Read more" link below to read the full announcement!
The recent outbreak of novel coronavirus COVID-19 has disrupted international travel, events and programs worldwide and left many parents and students worried about the possibility of cancellation of summer programs such as SigmaCamp.
At the moment, we are expecting to operate the camp as scheduled. However, the situation is changing daily, and we are carefully monitoring all announcements and recommendations of Centers for Disease Control, Connecticut Department of Public Health, and other federal and state agencies. We will be posting updates on our web page.
Please note that in case of cancellation, SigmaCamp is not liable for any expenses incurred by the students or parents such as airline tickets, visa fees, or other expenses. A policy for reimbursement of tuition payment in case of cancellation will be posted by April 15th.
Due to the unclear situation with the possibility of transmission of 2019-nCoV we postponed the event on Sunday, March 8, 5 PM
On March 8th at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook University, we are holding our Spring "Taste of Sigma" event. It will be an evening full of Science and Math demonstrations and activities for children and adults of all ages. Admission is free but seats are limited, but registration is required. RSVP here!
On Nov 10, 2019, we are holding our first "Taste of Sigma" event at Simons Center for Geometry and Physics of Stony Brook University. During the event you will attend a lecture by our faculty Tatiana Pyatina (same one she gave at SigmaCamp 2019), meet Sigma Faculty and board members (so you can ask them any questions you might have), and meet other parents and prospective parents.
Admission is free but seats are limited, so registration is required. To register and learn more, please visit this page
We would like to thank Simons Center for Geometry and Physics for hosting this event!
Download lecture poster
Dear friends:
SC 2019 is now over; the Spirit of Sigma has been sealed in a glass vessel to wait until next year.
If you haven't yet done so, please check out the collection of photos created by our photographers, lead by Natalia Ilina: https://photos.sigmacamp.org/2019
The organizers are taking a short break - but we will soon start preparing for SigmaCamp 2020! Please watch this page for updates. If you want to be informed about any news related to SC 2020, you can add your name to the mailing list here: http://sigmacamp.org/2020_list
Dear parents:
in these last days before the camp and during camp, we will be sending reminders and announcements to you by email, using the email address you provided during registration. Please make sure to check this email frequently!
We will also be posting updates on our blog page and on our Facebook page: https://facebook.com/sigmacamp
Please note that the internet connection at camp is limited, and the staff will be very busy, so we might not be able to respond to your emails right away. Please see Staying in Touch page for the best ways to get in touch with your children and with us during the camp.
In just a few days, SigmaCamp 2019 begins! Parents, campers, please remember to read the arrival instructions with important travel and what-to-bring information.
A preliminary list of SigmaCamp 2019 semilabs has been posted: http://sigmacamp.org/2019/semilabs
It includes our favorite semilabs from previous years such as Chemistry of Fire and some new semilabs, such as Constructing a Language.
This is work in progress, and minor changes are still possible.
Problem of the month contest for 2018-19 has completed. Our faculty have graded all submitted solutions and determined the winners. This year we have 3 winners in each of two age categories: 8th grade and below, and 9th grade and above.
Winners in Category 5 (8th grade and below) are:
1. The First place and a $100 Amazon gift card are awarded to Mark Kovrizhkin (178 points) 2. The Second place and a $75 Amazon gift card are awarded to Maria Yaskina (153 points) 3. The Third place and a $50 Amazon gift card are awarded to Nicholas Eastwood (147 points)
Winners in Category 10 (9th grade and above) are: 1. The First place and $100 Amazon gift cards are awarded to Matthew Chekhlov (176 points) 2. The Second place and a $75 Amazon gift card are awarded to Daniel Salkinder (173 points) 3. The Third place and a $50 Amazon gift card are awarded to Samuel Rosner (165 points)
All winners will receive their gift cards by mail in the next few weeks. Diplomas and some special prizes will be awarded to all winners at the Opening Ceremony of SigmaCamp 2019!
We are happy to announce that registration for SigmaCamp 2019 will open on Friday, March 1, at noon (11:59 AM Eastern Time). Registration information will be posted here - please watch this site for updates!
SigmaCamp 2019 will take place in our usual location (Silver Lake Conference Center near Sharon, CT) in the week of August 11 - 18. The registration will open in the second half of February; if you want to be informed when the registration opens, please sign up for our mailing list.
It is hard to believe, but SigmaCamp 2018 is now over :(
It was a great and busy week - week of studies and fun, friendship and debates, games and music, and more! Thanks to everyone involved - our campers and their parents, counselors and staff!
We have posted a number of photos at photos.sigmacamp.org - thanks to Natalia Ilina and Vicka Bershadsky. We have a lot more photos - we will post some of them once we unload the truck and get some sleep.
A very busy week has just started! To see our news updates and daily photos, please visit our blog.
Parents who want to send a message to their children can do so using our Sigma Telegraph. That page also contains instructions for contacting SigmaCamp staff in case of emergency.
Schedule of lectures for SC 2018 is now ready! Black holes and quantum computers, viruses and drug discovery, Benford's law and mathematics of chaos, language universals and brain sciences, and much more - find it here.
Ekaterina Eremenko, an award-winning documentary filmmaker known for her films about math and mathematicians, had visited SigmaCamp in August 2017, and had produced a short movie about us: The SigmaFilm.
Admission decisions for SigmaCamp 2018 have now been sent - check your emails!
We are happy to welcome the new generation of SigmaCampers and can't wait to meet you in person in August. We are sorry that we had to turn down many applicants, including many interesting and gifted students, but the camp can only hold so many beds, and our semilabs work best in small size groups...
Problem of the month contest for 2017-18 has completed. Our faculty have graded all submitted solutions and determined the winners.
This year we have 3 winners in each of two age categories: 8th grade and below, and 9th grade and above.
Winners in Category 5 (8th grade and below) are: 1. The First place and a $100 Amazon gift card are awarded to Daniil Salkinder (187 points) 2. The Second place and a $75 Amazon gift card are awarded to Maria Yaskina (157 points) 3. The Third place and a $50 Amazon gift card are awarded to Daniel Yentin (140 points)
Winners in Category 10 (9th grade and above) are: 1. The First place and $100 Amazon gift cards are awarded to Sofiya Filippova(183 points) 2. The Second place and a $75 Amazon gift card are awarded to Sophie Kamenetsky (148 points) 3. The Third place and a $50 Amazon gift card are awarded to Victor Turbiner (137 points)
We are now accepting applications for SC 2018, which will take place August 12-19, at Silver Lake Conference Center, CT. To apply, please follow instructions on this page. Application deadline is April 18, 2018.
Dear all: POM contest for 2017-18 is now closed. We will grade all solutions and declare winners by the end of February. Remember that winners of POM are accepted to SigmaCamp without the qualification quiz!
Deadline for submitting solutions of PoM was yesterday, November 5. Today we have posted hints for problems in Math, Physics, and Biology. If you had difficulty solving the problems without hints, check them! You can submit your solutions until November 10, but the point value of the solutions submitted during this period will be only 60% of the full regular submission.
You can find them here: http://sigmacamp.org/pom/problems2017
Remember, you can join PoM at any moment -- so if you missed September PoM, it is not too late to start!
Deadline for submitting solutions of PoM was yesterday, October 5. Today we have posted hints for problems in Math and Physics. If you had difficulty solving the problems without hints, check them! You can submit your solutions until October 10, but the point value of the solutions submitted during this period will be only 60% of the full regular submission.
DO you enjoy solving challenging math and science problems? Then check out our Problem of the Month contest. Remember, winners of PoM are admitted to SigmaCamp without the Qualifiying Quiz!
Do you know that all blog posts include camp photos? To see them, click on "read more" link on Blog page. It might take a minute for the photos to laod - there are lots of them!
More photos coming tonight - once we select the best ones from 2,000+ photos we take daily!
Admission decisions have been sent to all applicants. Please check your email!
Admitted students will get emails with instructions on filling the necessary paperwork, submitting the payment, and most importantly, on choosing the semilabs! Please pay attention to deadlines for doing this.
The descriptions of semilabs which will be offered in SC 2017 are now posted on 2017 Semilabs page. Please check them out and start thinking which of them you would like to attend (every camper gets to attend two semilabs). It is not the4 final list - we might add another semilab, or slightly change some of the descriptions, but we do not expect too many changes.
learning how lie detectors work and building your own one
programming an autonomous rover navigating by GPS
learning about fractals or traveling salesman problem
expressing and analyzing proteins
launching rockets and boomerangs
... and engaging in many, many other activities under the guidance of scientists and researchers from StonyBrook University, Brookhaven National Lab, Harvard Medical School and other top scientific institutions
Thank you to everybody for a great PoM season! Congratulations to PoM 2016-17 winners:
Winners in category 9th grade and above are:
1. The First place is shared by Ronia Hinich (176 points) and Sofiya Filippova (175 points) each of whom will receive a $100 Amazon gift card 3. The Third place and a $50 Amazon gift card are awarded to Daniel Friedmann (154 points)
Winners in category 8th grade and below are:
1. The First place and a $100 Amazon gift card are awarded to Sophie Kamenetsky (158 points) 2. The Second place and a $75 Amazon gift card are awarded to Daniel Salkinder (135 points) 3. The Third place and a $50 Amazon gift card are awarded to Nicholas Eastwood (117 points)
All January 2017 POM submissions have been graded. See the updated scores here.
This completes our 2016-17 Problem of the Month contest. The names of the winners and students admitted to SigmaCamp2017 without the Qualifying Quiz will be announced shortly.
Congratulations to all participants! See you in SigmaCamp!
Dear SigmaCampers:
we are happy to announce that we start accepting applications for SC 2017 on March 1, 2017! The dates of the camp are Aug 13-20, 2017. We will post other relevant information as we get closer to March 1.
Also, the currently posted Problem of the Month assignment (Jan 2017) is the last assignment of this season; once it is graded, we will announce the winners who will be offered admission to SC 2017 without the qualification quiz.
Please remember that today is the last day to submit solutions for November POM without penalty. Hints will be posted tomorrow; solutions submitted after that will be graded lower.
Also, the grades and comments for October problems are now posted; the scoreboard has been updated.
Please note that November POM problems were updated (in previously posted problem set, we had posted old set of Physics problems by mistake. This has been fixed in the updated assignment.)
Hints for September POM have now been posted; you can find them here.
You can submit your solution until Oct 10. Remember that solutions submitted after the hints were posted are graded lower (maximum of 3 points for a 5 pt problem and 6 points for a 10 pt one).
New season of Problem of the Month contest is now officially open! Remember, winners of PoM will be accepted to SigmaCamp 2017 without the qualifying quiz.
Thank you all for a great season! We will begin to post our extensive collection of photos from Sigma 2016 shortly. Campers: Please check your emails to find the link to the end-of-season survey and fill it out if you haven't already, to help us make Sigma 2017 even better.
We have posted information regarding the logistics for camper drop off and pick up, as well as suggestions for things to bring to Sigma. Please find the information here.
Admission decisions have been emailed to campers and parents! please check your email.
This year we had many more applications than available spots, so we had to turn down a number of great candidates. Those who were rejected - remember, winners of our Problem of the Month contest are admitted without the qualifying quiz.
Admitted students will receive more info in the coming days. Meanwhile, here is the list of semilabs offered in SigmaCamp 2016: http://sigmacamp.org/2016/semilabs.
The application deadline for SC 2016 is in less than a week!
If you haven't yet registered, please register now. If you have registered, please check the status of your application here to verify that we have received the required materials (recommendation letters, essay, etc).
SigmaCamp has received The Epsilon Award for Young Scholars Programs
We are happy to announce that SigmaCamp has received a $7,000 grant from American Mathematical Society Epsilon Fund for Young Scholars Programs. This award allows us to offer a limited number of need-based scholarships for SigmaCamp2016 students. Please visit this page for more information.
We thank everyone again for a great season of Problem of the Month and we are happy to announce the awards for PoM 2015-16!
1. The First place and a $100 Amazon gift card are awarded to the absolute POM Champion – Daniel Salkinder (166 points). 2. The Second place and a $75 Amazon gift card are awarded to – Arina Khotimsky (151 points). 3. The Third place and a $50 Amazon gift card are awarded to – Ronia Hinich (146 points) and 4. The Fourth place and a $25 Amazon gift card are awarded to – Sophie Kamenetsky (122 points) – Victor Turbiner (120 points)
All PoM problems for January have been graded. This completes 2015-16 Problem of the Month contest: January was the last month. To see your grades, log in to your account. To see where you stand in comparison with other participants, please see the score table; for privacy reasons, it only lists participants' ID rather than names.
According to the contest rules, 25 students with top scores in each age category (grade 8 and younger and grades 9-10) who earned 25 points or more will be accepted to SigmaCamp without the Qualification quiz. A letter will be sent to the winners to confirm their achievement.
If you are not one of the winners, please stay tuned for the qualification quiz, which will be posted by March 1.
This competes 2015-16 Problem of the month contest. Submitted solutions will be graded and winners will be announced by March 1. And stay tuned for the Qualification Quiz for SigmaCamp 2016!
Regular submission deadline for January Problem of the Month has passed.
We have now posted some hints for these problems and will be accepting post-deadline solutions (at a penalty)
until midnight of Feb 10.
Regular submission deadline for December Problem of the Month has passed.
We have now posted some hints for these problems and will be accepting post-deadline solutions (at a penalty)
until midnight of Jan 10.
Regular submission deadline for November Problem of the Month has passed.
We have now posted some hints for these problems and will be accepting post-deadline solutions (at a penalty)
until midnight of Dec 10.
Also, you can now check your scores for October problems.
Deadline for submitting October PoM has passed. However, we will be accepting late sumissions until the midnight of Nov 10, and we have posted hints for some of the problems here. Late submissions will incur some penalties as described in the official rules.
Problem of the Month: post-deadline submissions and hints
The deadline to submit solutions for September has passed, but we decided to allow for late submissions, until Oct 10 - for a price. Additionally, some subjects have posted hints for the problems.
Day 1 photos were added to the page of SigmaCamp 2015 photos. Note that there are two albums: one for lectures and semilabs, and the other for all other photos.
Today we begin our 2015-16 Problem of the Month (PoM) contest! It is open to everyone who enjoys solving challenging problems in Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Computer Science. A new set of problems will be posted every month; participants will submit solutions online. First problem set has been posted today; solutions are due by Oct 5. Winners of PoM will be admitted to SigmaCamp without completing the qualifying quiz.
We are now working on selecting and posting thousands of photos taken at Sigma. To whet your appetite, here is the first photo: team Lambda! This team was selected because it was most active in filling the Sigma Survey.
We promise to post the photos of the remaining teams as soon as the survey gets 80 responses (right now, we have 41).
Thank you for a great season! As you may know, as soon as Sigma ends, preparations for next year begin. The driving force between positive changes at SigmaCamp are campers like you: We really value campers' feedback.
As our way to thank you for filling the survey, 10 people, randomly chosen from survey takers, will be given priority registration to any of the workshops of SC 2016!
Thank you to everyone for a great season! You will hear back from us soon with Problem of the Month 2015-16, information for prospective Junior Counselors, and the application to Sigma 2016 :)
Admission Descisions for SigmaCamp 2015 have been sent out. We had a record number of applicants this year, and thank everyone who applied. SigmaCampers 2015, please take a look at the list of semilabs for 2015!
A preliminary list of Semilabs for SigmaCamp 2015 is now available here. Please check out all the exciting things which will be presented in SigmaCamp this year - from lie detectors to cosmology, from graphs and networks to DNA barcoding. For those who have not yet completed the registration: please remember that registration for SigmaCamp 2015 closes on April 20 - one week from today.
Since Day 5 at Sigma was so well documented in our blog, we decided to focus on
the advanced game of Mafia with lie detectors. It was a game of deception and,
ultimately, of the triumph of truth. Students from the Biosensors Semilab
wired up the Mafia players and, by analyzing bodily signals could tell
who the bad guys were with solid statistical confidence!
October PoM has been graded. Registered students can see their grades by logging to their account. You can also see the statistics here. Do not forget: solutions of November PoM are due by Dec. 5.
A new Problem of the Month season is just around the corner!
In a few days the registration for PoM 2014/15 will be open and on October 10th, the first set of problems will appear on our website. Each month, you will be challenged with new exciting problems in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, as well as Computer Science. You can find more detailes about the PoM contest here.
It was an amazing week, full of too many events to list here. We all learned something, made new friends, and had fun.
We plan to catalog and post all the information we have accumulated - summaries of the things we did in the semilabs, abstracts of lectures and videos of the Movie Festival, photos (we have lots of them!) and more. We will post announcements on this page an on our facebook page.
We would like to let you know that WiFi connection at Silver Lake is quite poor, and campers Skype with their parents with significant difficulties. We ask you to please refrain from casually asking your child to give you a call unless it is important -- the calls take a lot of campers' valuable time in the evening.
Connecticut requires all campers to provide a copy of their last physical exam with a doctor signature, as well as a copy of your insurance card. Please submit scans to forms@sigmacamp.org. Please bring the original form to camp.
We will be posting announcements both on SigmaCamp page and on our page in Facebook. Like us on Facebook if you would like to get these announcements or leave comments!
Thank you to everyone who applied for SigmaCamp 2014.
We are proud to tell you that this year SigmaCamp received applications from 10 US States and 8 countries! Thank you very much for your enthusiasm! Taking into account the fact that some school districts are in the middle of spring break right now, we will continue to accept teacher recommendations.
If you missed the deadline you can still apply for the waitlist. We encourage you to complete your application if you haven't already done so.
Dear Sigma applicants: remember, the application deadline is April 20!
If you already registered but forgot your registration ID (which you will need to submit the rest of your application), send e-mail to info@sigmacamp.org with your name and we will let you know your ID!
1) Essay: Please remember, that EVERYONE (even students accepted through the Problem of the Month Contest!) needs to submit the short (250 words max) essay as part of the application.
The Question of the Week, about the advanced SemiLabs at SigmaCamp, has now been posted, and the results of the last questions have been announced! If you already registered for SigmaCamp 2014, you have received an email with a link.
If you participated in PoM this year and provided us with your home address, you can expect your PoM gift in the mail sometime next week (or in two weeks, if you are international)! To claim your gift, please follow the link above!
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