March 14th marked National Pi Day, and here at Hamburg Area High School, students in their math classes have participated in numerous 3.14 activities. In Ms. Heckman’s class, she especially enjoys the holiday and goes all out.
Ms. Heckman has had her famous “Heckman Hall of Fame” since 2009, where the winners of the Pi reciting contest are entered. The all-time winner was Kyle Reppert in 2017 with his 417 digits written down on paper. From Ms. Heckman, “I wish we could experience it again, he wrote them and did not stop writing.” The highest digits recited in Ms. Heckman’s classes this year was Freshman Rileyanne Fisher with 118 digits written down. Almost 600 digits are taped onto lockers in the math wing by the Math Honor Society in celebration of Pi Day.
Each year, there is a Pi Day shirt designed, and this year, the theme was a patriotic theme for America’s 250th anniversary. For the theme, the shirt was sent out to some of our politicians, including President Trump, VP Vance, Governor Shapiro, Senator Fetterman, Senator McCormick, Representative Dan Meuser, Senator Chris Gebhard, and Representative Jamie Barton. There were two responses, one from Jamie Barton and Dan Mueser. Freshman Mason Velilla noted, “I find it cool that we got Dan Meusser to wear one of our shirts.”
In the celebration aspect of Pi Day, there were numerous activities, and all the circular desserts and snacks. Students’ favorite parts of the celebration are not having to do actual work and getting to hang out with all of their friends. Most students enjoyed all the fun snacks, while others believed they were just okay. Freshman Kylie Werley believed it would have been fun to participate in the reciting contest, but it was just too difficult to memorize all the digits.
Another favorite part of the day was Ms. Heckman’s Pi word challenge, where students had to list as many words as they could in a given amount of time, beginning with the letters “Pi”. Ms. Heckman stated, “It’s always a fun one because it gets another subject idea in and gets people thinking differently.”
Students all expressed that there was no bad part of Hamburg Area High School’s Pi Day celebration and that they all had tons of fun.
