DELRAY BEACH, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) (Copyright © 2026 MetroDesk Media, LLC) — Five students from American Heritage School’s Palm Beach campus in Delray Beach have punched their ticket to the finals of a prestigious international math competition — and a share of $100,000 in scholarships. Joseph Levenston, Rishan Thangaraj, Rayan Kha, David Zapata, and Siyuan Du are among just nine finalist teams in the MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge (M3 Challenge), a grueling competition that drew more than 3,430 high school students from across the United States and the United Kingdom.
The team spent 14 straight hours in early March working through this year’s real-world problem: assessing the financial risks and broader societal impacts of online sports betting. Their submission impressed judges through two rounds of intense scrutiny and now heads to the final stage. On April 27, the students travel to New York City to present their findings to a panel of professional mathematicians.
Now in its 21st year, M3 Challenge is organized by the Philadelphia-based Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and sponsored by MathWorks. The competition challenges students to apply mathematical modeling to real-world issues. The champion team takes home $20,000. Team coach and math teacher Derek Rampal said he was proud of how far his students have come. “I’ve worked with these kids since 9th grade and seeing them reach this level of competition is truly amazing,” Rampal said.
Team member Rayan Kha called it a standout experience. “Spending 14 hours working on this year’s problem allowed the team to bond over our common interest in mathematics,” Kha said, adding that the challenge gave the team a new appreciation for how math applies to the real world. The other eight finalist teams hail from schools in New Jersey, Arizona, Ohio, Virginia, Texas, New York City, and two schools in the United Kingdom.
