Space junk is debris orbiting Earth that, for the most part, has been abandoned or has broken off spacecrafts and rockets. Some of these items are far enough from Earth that they will remain in orbit forever; however, much of this “junk” will be pulled into Earth’s atmosphere by gravity. On average, one item per day falls victim to gravity. At this rate, in what year will 2500 pieces of space junk enter the atmosphere if we begin counting on February 18th?

Vanessa bought some round holiday dessert plates to give as a gift to her friend. However, the store only had 5 of the 8 plates she wanted. (All of the plates are the same.) The stack of five plates measured 1.5 inches tall, and when two plates were removed from the stack the remaining stack of three plates had a height of 1 inch. When Vanessa finally has all 8 of the plates she wants, how tall will the stack of 8 plates be, in inches? Express your answer as a decimal to the nearest hundredth.

Here are a few of the problems that competitors had to solve as they faced off in head-to-head matches during the 2018 State Countdown Round.