Editor’s note: Katie Wong and Andrew Zhang, members of a Stuyvesant High School math team that recently won a coveted place in the finals of a highly competitive international math competition, wrote this piece for the Trib about the team’s experience during the semi-finals. The team, which emerged as one of only nine teams out of 770 to reach the finals, lost in the last round on April 27, an in-person presentation of their paper to a panel of PhD mathematician judges.