Year In Review

Math for Service had a wonderful 2017! Thank you to everyone who volunteered or participated at our events in the past year. Read on for a recap of what each MfS organization was up to in 2017:

 OC Math Circle started up its guest lecture series again with a talk on prime numbers by Dr. Daqing Wan and Jerry Li. OCMC's High School Math Club team also attended the Caltech Harvey Mudd Math Competition. They hosted the Thanksgiving Math Tournament in November, brought the AMC 8 test to over 200 local students, and successfully continued offering regular events, including Elementary School Math Club, Middle School Math Club, High School Math Club, Santa Ana Math Club meetings, and Math Fun Nights. OCMC is looking forward to collaborating with the World Cube Association for another Rubik's Cube Tournament in 2018.

Click here to visit OCMC's website.


OC Scholar expanded its journalism series for students in grade 6-8 to cover a broader range of topics, including "Lead Writing and Interviewing" and "Photography". For the first time, OC Scholar opened up teaching positions to local high school students. They continued to cover MfS events on the OC Scholar website and also worked on creating an online writing competition for students.

Click here to visit OC Scholar's website. 


OC Coder expanded its Hour of Code to include three sites (Ardent Northwood, Sage HillSchool, and Portola High School), reaching over 1,100 students altogether. OC Coder also expanded its scratch classes to Washington Elementary School in Santa Ana, and introduced JavaScript classes which had overwhelmingly positive response. OC Coder continued their Scratch Saturday classes, two Girls Who Code clubs, and senior center program.

Click here to visit OC Coder's website. 




OC Science experienced a year of firsts, including its first Science Bowl Training Sessions, first partnership with local non-profit THINK Together and the Orange County Science and Engineering Fair to implement a science fair mentorship program at four local underserved schools, and first time being part of the Girl Scouts of Orange County STEM Expo, alongside companies like Google and SpaceX! OC Science also began outreach programs with local Girl Scout troops in 2017 and recently helped local Daisies and Brownies earn their "Designing Robots" STEM badge. OC Science also continued some of their oldest events. They organized and hosted the 3rd annual Orange County Science and Engineering Week, which included the 3rd annual Elementary Science Olympiad Invitational and Junior Engineering Olympiad, as well as the 2nd annual Science Bowl. OC Science continued their annual Science Discovery summer workshop series and increased their school chapter number to a total of 15.

Click here to visit OC Science's website. 

OC Arts conducted monthly music performances in the Lakeview Senior Center, andmore recently the Trabuco center, spreading the arts to senior citizens. With the efforts of both performers of all ages and volunteers, OC Arts raised and donated money for Human Options, an organization striving to help domestic abuse victims rehabilitate through the "Art from the Heart" annual benefit concert. Finally, OC Arts has been planning to launch monthly art competitions in an effort to expose visual arts students to more advanced creative thinking through innovative and thought-provoking prompts.

Click here to visit OC Arts' website. 

OC Engineer established their Robotics Program in two new schools in the Tustin District, restructured the Arduino Classes to reach more students, and incorporated the principles of the engineering design process into each monthly workshops. OC Engineer is also working towards a computer building project for local schools that operates off the donation of old laptops.

Click here to visit OC Engineer's website. 




OC Hacker successfully launched an all-new revamped training series for the USAComputing Olympiad, bringing high-level computing skills to competitors ranging from grades 6-8. Through the continued expansion of OC Hacker's developer team, they have launched the Voluntu Android app and are working on launching an iOS app to make tracking service hours easier than ever. This expansion enabled OC Hacker to develop a new problem-solving platform designed to allow students to learn from and compete globally in online tournaments covering science, technology, engineering, 
and mathematics.


All Girls Math Tournament hosted its 8th annual tournament in Orange County as well as multiple satellite locations. AGMT started hosting classes to prepare for the tournament as well as math mixers where girls have fun playing math games and get to know each other. In addition, AGMT hosted a booth at the Girl Scouts of Orange County STEM Expo and worked with Girl Scout troops to help them earn their STEM badges.

Click here to visit AGMT's website. 

OC Launch successfully launched its first series of workshops and started a LaunchX club powered by MIT. OC Launch hosted two workshops, "Money Management" and "Social Media Marketing," which taught budgeting and investment skills, and marketing skills, respectively, to over 60 students. OC Launch's LaunchX club is currently developing two high school teams to compete in MIT Launch, an entrepreneurship competition, in April.

Click here to visit OC Launch's website. 

All Math for Service organizations came together for an Open House at Sage Hill School in May, as well as the 2nd annual STEAM in the Park at Bill Barber Park in August.

Math for Service is grateful to have shared 2017 with you, and are excited for an even better 2018!