AGazine November 2009

AGazine November 2009

The Online Magazine of the Academic Games Leagues of America

News and Notes | Where Are They Now?
Featured League | Down Memory Lane

News and Notes

The AGLOA Board of Directors voted via e-mail to hold the 2013 National Tournament in Charlotte rather than Baton Rouge. Charlotte offers a more central site to the various leagues. Accordingly, negotiations have begun with the Marriott Executive Park and Hilton Executive Park, the side-by-side hotels that have been used the last several times nationals was held in North Carolina.

The Palm Beach County League conducted training for Propaganda on September 29 and began playing Prop on October 27, four weeks later. That is the league's typical schedule for a "season" (game). Social Studies training will take place on January 5 and Presidents play will commence two weeks later.

The next Saturday tournaments of the Michigan League of Academic Games (MLAG) will be conducted as follows:
November 21 at Westside Academy (Region A), Bates (B), Vernor (C), Fitzgerald Elementary (D), and Brewer Elementary (E). All five schools are in Detroit.
The annual SuperTournament will be held at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids. Junior and Senior Divisions will play March 3-5 with Elementary and Middle March 10-12.

The Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV League in Pennsylvania held its Presidents competition last month and just completed its On-Sets tournament November 9. Next up is LinguiSHTIK December 2 (Grades 7-12) and 9 (Grades 3-6). Equations training will be given December 18.

The New Orleans Academic Games League was scheduled to begin On-Sets competition November 10-11 but postponed the rounds for a week since most schools in the area were closed November 9 because of Hurricane Ida. All divisions will play two doubleheaders: Rounds 1-2 on November 17 (Jr/Sr) and 18 (El/Mid) and Rounds 3-4 December 1 and 2. Starting time is 3:45 each day.

Leagues are asked to send in their calendars as well as results of their competitions (or links to this info) for inclusion in future News and Notes.

Featured League

The Massachusetts League of Academic Games of America (MAGLOA) was founded in 2007 by Bao Tran, a student in Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston.

While teaching in the MIT Saturday Engineering & Enrichment Discovery (SEED) Academy, Bao discovered that many of her students thirsted for challenges beyond what they learned in conventional classrooms.

Having enjoyed her years of competition in the Jefferson Parish League, including being a member of the 2005 Senior Sweepstakes Champions, Bao thought academic games was just what the doctor ordered for her students.

MAGLOA stages tournaments in Equations, On-Sets, LinguiSHTIK, Propaganda, and Presidents for students in grades 6-12. The league's yearly goal is to prepare 20-25 students for the AGLOA National Tournament.

Bao is ably assisted by her board of directors, which includes several other AG alumni.

As a long-term objective, MAGLOA hopes to expand to school districts across the state of Massachusetts and to the Middle and Elementary levels.

Watch a video about MAGLOA.

Bao Tran at Nationals '09

Where Are They Now?

Alex Baker

Alex Baker, a member of Ann Arbor's Junior and Senior sweeps champs from 2001-2004, graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in '08. He's back in his hometown working for Clean Water Action.

Jeanette Johnson from Broward County FL won the Outstanding Senior Award for 1984. (Only one was given in those days.) She is the Principal of Lorenzo Walker Institute of Technology and Lorenzo Walker Technical High School in Naples FL.

Dr. Don Bagert, three-time national Equations champ ('71-73) from New Orleans, teaches Computer Science at Southeast Missouri State U.

Don Bagert

Got any news concerning AG players, alumni, and coaches? E-mail the editor.

Down Memory Lane

Here are some of the Equations rules changes approved for the 1972-3 school year.

Each player was allowed to call one timeout per match. "The timeout must be called after all Solutions from the previous Shake have been accepted or rejected but before the stall is begun for picking variations for the next Shake."
The variation prohibiting numerals from being played to Required was deleted. So were the variations forbidding multiplication by zero and zero exponents in Solutions.
The wording of the Base m variation was changed so that players must play in base m (where m was 6 to 10). Also, two-digit base m numerals were now allowed in Solutions.
The variation making the – cube wild for operations was deleted while the x wild variation was retained.