Ramanujan Club kids amaze with their talent

Ashwin Patel
ST LOUIS: The basement of Hindu temple of St. Louis was filled with energetic kids ranging from elementary to high school keen to show their talent.

Kantharao Minnaganti, a lead organizer, briefed the gathering about Srinivasa Ramanujan Mathema Tricks Club observing that his daughter participated in the summer program few years ago and got benefited in her school grades as well.
He then introduced Sreenivasa Ainapurapu to the audience as a software consultant by profession and who teaches Vedic Mathematics during summer. Later he and Sruthi Manasa Ainapurapup presided over the event.

Sruthi Manasa gave the historic background of the Club, Sanghamitra’s and Sreenivasa Rao Ainapurapu’s activities and involvement in the community. Sanghamitra aka Sreenivasa Rao has been sharing knowledge via different modes like in-person & skype mathematics classes, through articles via an online magazine, teaching at Manabadi (Telugu learning class) and Balavikas of Greater St. Louis.
Sanghamitra has also been extending its support through monetary donations to non-profit organizations and the needy. This year Sanghamitrais donated little over $5000 to half a dozen organizations. Later she invited the founder of Sanghamitra Sreenivasa Rao Ainapurapu onto the stage to explain about the summer program and the Vedic Mathematics topics for the evening.

Sreenivasa Rao explained about the various organizations in St.Louis area and how they have been working hand in hand. He encouraged that trend, which is very helpful for the progress of our community. He mentioned that “Hand in hand” is one of the organizations Sanghamitra is contributing this year. Each individual finger is significant by itself. But, if all the fingers join, that is when it becomes fist.
He explained about Srinivasa Ramanujan Mathema Tricks Club, remembered and offered obeisance to Srinivasa Ramanujan, whose great work brought the wisdom to mankind.

Sreenivasa Ainapurapu brought in 14 topics and the participants answered each topic. Finding Triples, Square roots, Cube roots, Fifth roots, Filling a 3 X 3 matrix in such a way that the sum of digits in each row, each column and each diagonal equal to the given number, multiplication by 25 from left to right, writing decimal recurring places for a fraction like 1/29, 1/39, 1/49, 1/89 etc., framing a 12 digit number that is divisible by 13, computing the day for a given date, telling the missing digit in a 5 digit by 5 digit multiplication, month and year are some of the topics.
Audience asked plenty of questions on each topic and they felt amazed seeing how fast the kids answered those questions. The response to recurring decimal places for fractions like 1/49 (42 digits), 1/59 (58 decimal places), cube roots and fifth roots kept them spell bound. During the presentation of the triples topic, when a member of the audience gave a number, the other two numbers were given in less than 5 seconds by the presenting participant. Some of the kids went an extra mile and answered very tough questions from the audience

Sruthi Manasa thanked on behalf of Sanghamitra and Srinivasa Ramanujan Mathema Tricks Club, to the Hindu temple of St. Louis for allowing the use of its facility for organizing Medhavadhanam, the Telugu association of St. Louis (TAS), the parents for encouraging and providing their support for their kids to participate in summer program, all the volunteers who helped him with the arrangements throughout the summer and during Medhavadhanam.