A hush fell over the Forum as seniors Ben Hellman and Alessandro Alfandari raced to solve the integral projected on the screen. After roughly two hours and eight rounds of intense competition, the score was tied 1–1, and whoever solved this last integral would win GDS’ third annual Integration Bee.
Hellman excitedly circled his solution and turned to the judges, anxiously awaiting senior Kevin Xia and juniors Oliver Wolin and Lucas Qi’s confirmation that his answer was correct. Students, friends, family, faculty and alumni erupted in cheers after the commentators announced that, after a controversial run to the finals, Hellman, the sixth seed, was the Grand Integrator.
The third annual Integration Bee, a tournament-style calculus competition, took place on Mar. 19 at 6:00 p.m. The competition was first organized in 2023 by Ethan Wolin ’23 and Ollie Alfonso-Frank ’24. In the nine rounds of this year’s Bee, contestants solved integrals of varying levels of difficulty, with more time to solve the integrals as the questions became more difficult.
Qi, 2024’s Grand Integrator, and Wolin organized this year’s Bee. “I’m really proud of Lucas [Qi] and Oliver Wolin for running a really good Bee,” math teacher and faculty advisor Lee Goldman said. “I thought it was a great combination of competition and entertainment.”
Two seniors, six juniors, sophomore Rhea Ganta and chemistry teacher Greg Dallinger competed in the Bee. The contestants, seeding and bracket placement were determined two weeks prior to the competition based on the students’ and teachers’ performances on a written test.
In Hellman’s semifinal matchup against the second seed, junior Helena Oscherwitz, the judges approved an answer that Oscherwitz said was incorrect. With the score tied 1–1, the two contestants submitted nearly identical answers—Oscherwitz’s answer included absolute value bars while Hellman’s did not. The judges said Hellman won the round because his answer was circled first.
Oscherwitz said the judges later admitted to making a mistake in a text message to her and that Hellman’s answer was incorrect because it was missing the absolute value bars. However, Wolin said in an interview that though the answer without absolute value bars is technically incorrect, the Bee does not require absolute value bars. “It’s a speed competition, and we don’t want the round decided on the small things like that,” Wolin said.
Xia created a document in March detailing the acceptable answer forms for the Integration Bee, and the document says “the use of absolute value signs in logarithms or inverse trig functions is not required.” The judges did not send the document to competitors prior to the tournament, but they explained the rules to competitors verbally immediately before the competition. Oscherwitz said the judges did not explain the rule about absolute value bars.
Alfandari, the eighth seed, faced Ganta, the ninth seed, in the first round. After struggling for over 30 minutes, Alfandari won 2–1 and advanced to the quarterfinals. During the round, the commentators joked that the two contestants were struggling because of their low seeding.
In the second matchup, Dallinger faced the seventh seed, junior Sid Debgupta. Debgupta answered the first integral correctly. Dallinger quickly guessed zero on the next integral and spent most of the two minutes drawing molecular orbital diagrams next to his answer and communicating to the crowd by writing on his whiteboard. Dallinger repeatedly wrote “2001” to emphasize that he had not taken a calculus class in 24 years. Dallinger beat Debgupta 2–1.
Oscherwitz explained that the first two rounds took longer than expected, prompting the judges to create simpler integrals on the spot.
The competition continued with Alfandari facing the first seed, junior Amit Tate. Alfandari answered the first integral correctly. Before the match between Alfandari and Tate, because of time constraints, the judges changed the rules so that integrators only needed to solve one problem to advance, and Alfandari would have immediately advanced. Multiple competitors stood up from their seats to protest the change, and the judges reverted to the original rule.
The first seed has never advanced past the first round of the Bee. Tate’s brother Ashok Tate ‘23 was also the first seed, in 2023, and lost in his first round. This Bee was no exception, and Alfandari defeated Tate 2–1 to advance to the semifinals.
Juniors Nate Ridl and Nate Zia, the fourth and fifth seeds, respectively, faced off in a quarterfinal that the announcers dubbed “Nate Squared.” Each contestant correctly solved one integral, but Zia ultimately advanced with a 2–1 victory. Junior Benji Gold waved a cardboard cutout of Zia as the crowd cheered Zia on.
Dallinger then faced Oscherwitz, who quickly secured a 2–0 victory by correctly answering two consecutive integrals. Dallinger was visibly confused by one of the integrals, drawing a question mark on his mostly blank whiteboard.
Hellman and the third seed, junior Oliver Malkin, competed next. Hellman won the round 2–1, and Malkin sat on the floor in disappointment and frustration after the round ended.
After the semifinal round between Hellman and Oscherwitz, Wolin said he and Qi wanted to contact Oscherwitz after a “not fishy but somewhat unsatisfying call” to apologize. “I know that’s an annoying way to lose,” Wolin said in an interview.
Oscherwitz said Wolin texted her after the round and apologized for making a mistake. “Lucas and I made a heat-of-the-moment decision, and we were wrong. I can understand how infuriating it probably was to be knocked out on a fishy call by us, and we’re really very sorry,” Wolin said in his text message to Oscherwitz.
Wolin said in a follow-up interview that Hellman did win the rounds according to the Bee’s rules. “When I sent the text to Helena, I got ahead of myself and the other leaders and judges at the Integration Bee trying to make sure Helena felt all right,” Wolin said.
In the final of the Bee, both contestants missed multiple integrals and the score was tied 1–1. After Hellman quickly solved the final integral to win the tournament, he said he was happy about winning and commended Alfandari’s performance.
“Winning the Integration Bee feels great, but honestly, the most important thing to me is that we got the whole school out, packed the Forum to watch a bunch of nerds do math,” Hellman said. “That says something very, very special about the GDS community.”
CORRECTION (April 7 at 2:35 p.m.): A previous version of this article mistakenly said Tate lost 2–0, not 2–1. It also said the Bee was on March 20. It was on March 19.