FAIRFIELD — The Camden Rockport Middle School Math Team is number one in Maine, taking top honors at the Mathcounts State Competition for middle schools hosted by the Maine Society of Professional Engineers on March 3 at Kennebec Valley Community College, Fairfield. CRMS eighth grader Thor Gabrielsen placed first in the overall competition, while Grayson Orne came in ninth in the state.

The competition was host to 22 middle schools and 75 students, all competing for top honors.

Schools across the state compete in the chapter competition that was held in January. CRMS placed first and all five of its students placed in the top 20 which advanced all of them to the state competition.

Students competing on the CRMS math team included Thor Gabrielsen, Greyson Orne, Noah Thackeray, Karl Hokkanen, Henry McDevitt and Tammy Hilchey.

The Competition Series has four levels of competition — school, chapter, state and national. Each level of competition consists of four rounds —Sprint, Target, Team and Countdown Round. Altogether the rounds are designed to take about three hours to complete.

• Sprint Round focuses on speed and accuracy. Students have 40 minutes to complete 30 math problems without a calculator.

• Target Round focuses on problem-solving and mathematical reasoning. Students receive four pairs of problems and have six minutes to complete each pair, assuming the use of a calculator.

• Team Round focuses on problem-solving and collaboration. Students have 20 minutes to complete ten math problems, assuming the use of a calculator. Only the four students on a school's team can take this round officially.

• Countdown Round focuses on speed and accuracy. Students have a maximum of 45 seconds per problem without a calculator.

The final Countdown Round is a head to head round for the top 10 scores as calculated from the prior 3 rounds.  Thor came in first, and  Greyson came in ninth in the state.

The national competition will be held May 1-14 in Washington, D.C.

Gabrielsen, as the first place winner, will receive an all-expense-paid trip to the competition. That includes flight, food and hotel stay.

As their coach, Tammy Hilchey, who teaches math at CRMS, also received an all expense paid trip.

"I am the official coach to represent Maine because Camden Rockport Middle School was the number one team," she said. "This means that the official coach takes the top four students from across the state. Unfortunately, I have a grandchild due at that time and the coach of the 2nd place team is going in my place."

Hilchey said these students work hard all year long prepping for this competition. They are great problems solvers.