Wed, 04/06/2022 - 11:15am

Thor Gabrielsen, a Watershed School senior, took top math honors in the state March 8.

CAMDEN – Thor Gabrielsen, of Rockport, and who is a Watershed School senior, topped Maine’s legendary math competition season with a first-place position and is winner of the Pete Pederson Bowl.

Gabrielsen, who is number one in the state, number one senior in the state, as well as the number one senior in the Central Maine Math League, joined Camden Hills Regional High School team, representing the school in the statewide competition. He has always attended Watershed School, but participates with the Camden Hills team. Watershed does not have cocurricular teams, so students participate with their town-affiliated teams.

Gabrielsen completed a Maine Association of Math League season with the highest MAML score in history, and becoming this year’s recipient of the Pete Pederson Bowl. Thor topped the leaderboard with a score of 296 for the season, meaning he missed but one question in this year’s five competitions.

Pete Pederson was Mathematics Instructor/Department Chair at Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Presque Isle.

Ceremonial awards took place in Augusta after the fifth MAML meet, March 8.

It has been 19 years since the cup was displayed at Camden Hills Regional High School where Thor competed, but he will be graduating from Watershed School in June.

In his high school MAML career, Thor has earned Number 1 Freshman, Number 1 Sophomore, Number 1 Junior, and merited top spots on the state-wide leaderboard.

Thor will continue his pursuit of mathematics next year at Colby College where he will dual major in mathematics and computer science.

Here’s a sample question that the students considered during the competition:

Trigonometric Equations and Identities

Find all values of x where 0o ≤ x < 360o and tan x = 1.

Express sinθ −1 − cosθ in simplest form. cosθ sinθ +1

March 2016 (No calculators)

Ans. ________________________

3. Find all values of θ , where 0o ≤ θ < 360o if 3 sec2 θ + 2 tanθ = 2 3 .

Ans. ________________________