By: Will Leech

My name is Will Leech, and I’m a member of ‘The Burning Circus,’ one of five teams from Burns Middle School competing in the Reel Math Challenge. We were each given [...]]]> Presidential elections this year have everyone ready to vote. But we need you to vote for something different—MATH VIDEOS!

By: Will Leech

My name is Will Leech, and I’m a member of ‘The Burning Circus,’ one of five teams from Burns Middle School competing in the Reel Math Challenge. We were each given a certain math problem with instructions to write a script, act out, and edit a 5-minute video teaching how to solve the problem, giving real-world applications for the problem, and (trying) to make you laugh. This national competition is sponsored by MATHCOUNTS, a national enrichment, club, and competition program, and the Department of Defense. Just make sure you don’t take this for boring math, because these videos have made these challenging problems into quick, easy, and sometimes hilarious solutions.

We started with just a list of props and a thin plot for our videos, which quickly became storyboards, then scripts, and finally were brought to life by our own acting. This involved numerous phone calls and text messages, repeated trips to the film site for retakes (and re-retakes), and extensive use of rubber chickens, calculators, English accents, and cardboard boxes.

We created a website at www.burnsmath.org to make it easy for you to vote for us throughout the month of January. Just click on the icon for each group and the video will begin playing in a new window. Then click the “LIKE” button to help us advance to the semifinals of the competition! You can vote for each video once a day, and if you have multiple devices that can connect to the internet you can vote with each of them. Only the 20 videos with the highest vote totals will be viewed by the panel of REEL MATH judges—and with your help, that’ll mean us!!

Please help us advance to the semi-finals where we could win an all-expense paid trip to the 2012 National MATHCOUNTS Competition and even college scholarships! Visit www.burnsmath.org today and check out all of the Burns Middle School groups! Thanks for your time and your votes!

The Burns Cookie Monsters with Phoebe Ferguson, Zack Neidig, Jacob Perkel, and Kristen Velez, on patterns in a geometric sequence.

The Burning Circus with Kaylin Chastain, Brianna Doane, Brady Hawkins, and Will Leech (me), on the area of similar figures.

Burns Spy Guys with Michael Gleason, Tristan Phillips, Chris Thatcher, and Liz Trader, on finding the length of the diagonal of a cube.

Burns Mod Men with Ben Backes, Joseph Capuiso, Jared Hurt, and Jakob Strawn, on modular arithmetic.

The Good Witch of Burns with Kaylin Chastain, Brevin Rivers, Arielle Weisman, and Alexis Williams, on greatest common factor and least common multiple.

But today, after an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman and a recent video making the cut on the Live! with Regis and Kelly show, Seaver is starting [...]]]> Click here to view the embedded video.

But today, after an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman and a recent video making the cut on the Live! with Regis and Kelly show, Seaver is starting to take his tumbling hobby, which he started when he was 19, a little more seriously.

On Tuesday, September 7, if selected, Seaver could receive $2,500 by being named a finalist for the Live! Wild & Wacky in the “Flipping Out” category of videos submitted by viewers on the show. Voting for a grand prize winner will conclude on Friday, September 10 and the winner will receive $20,000 and a lifetime supply of Trident gum.

Seaver moved to Summerfield with his family two years ago from Akron, Ohio.

“I had just started flipping over cars about three years ago. It started with gymnastics and tumbling,” he explained. “And, I just took a move I was good at, flipping, and started to challenge myself…with the help of friends…to flip over larger and larger items.”

“One day, I flipped over the hood of a car and then I decided to try the roof of a car.”

When Seaver flips, he selects a side flip or side somersault, his favorite maneuver, and has jumped over a Ford Mustang, 4-door Honda Civics, Ford Escorts and even a red BMW.

A selection of videos of him jumping over cars is available on YouTube by searching for Neil Seaver.

“When I flip, I am going over the car upside down,” explains Seaver. “There is definitely a danger element and I don’t recommend that anyone try it. A lot of people jump over cars but I don’t know anyone who flips over them like I do.”

Seaver is currently a student at the University of South Florida studying Biomedical Science. He is hoping to get accepted in the Physical Therapy Master’s program and to be able to flip cars for a living.

“If someone has the jumping power and the height, it is a personal accomplishment to flip over a car,” says Seaver who estimates he has flipped over about 50 cars.

His parents, Charles and Helen Seaver, both work for the Hearing Centers of South West Florida. His grandmother is Josephine Jankiewicz, who resides in Sun City Center.

“He was chosen from thousands of entries and his video was shown,” explains Helen. “At the time of the Letterman spot in 2007, Neil was also featured on Bay News 9, Tampa Bay 10, Osprey Observer, The Tampa Tribune, St. Petersburg Times and several days of articles in the Akron Beacon Journal.

For see more videos of him in action, visit Neil Seaver’s YouTube Channel.