Palmer Trinity School junior David Fumagalli is the school’s the Pi Recitation Champion three years running. Each year, on Pi Day (March 14) Palmer Trinity holds a competition to see which student can recite the most pi digits.
“I got my highest one yet – 421 digits,” he says.
He has an app on his phone to help him in his quest to be the best on Pi Day.
“My goal for 2020 – I’m trying to get past 500 digits,” he says. “Adding 80 won’t be difficult. I’, going to see how far past that 500 I can go.”
Fumagalli inspires others to work hard at school by volunteering with Breakthrough Miami. He worked throughout his sophomore year with Breakthrough, teaching the Saturday classes. He also volunteered for a couple of weeks this summer.
Over the summer he volunteered doing general assignments, like helping out with physical education classes, helping the fifth through eighth grade students learn to play basketball.
It was a natural fit for him since he plays varsity basketball for Palmer Trinity.
He secured supplies to fulfill teacher requests and or helped prepare for lunch by making lemonade.
“Whatever they needed me to do,” he says.
He also worked with other volunteers on things like creating posters.
“Breakthrough has a theme every summer,” he says. “All the volunteers made different video game themed posters and hung them around the campus for the kids to see.”
During the school year, Palmer Trinity students teach the Saturday classes instead of the teaching fellows hire for the summer session. The subjects he taught depended on which grade he was teaching.
“Breakthrough is a lot of fun. The kids are fun to be around,” he says.
Basketball is Fumagalli’s main sport. He’s played every year he’s been at Palmer Trinity.
“I play both small forward and power forward,” he says.
He’s looking forward to the upcoming season.
“I think we will be fairly good this year. We lost only three seniors,” he says. “A lot of the kids on the team are in my grade. We have a pretty good team and a good head coach.”
He’s also on the golf team, seeded in the top five.
“I’m probably around the three seed,” he says.
He trains at least once a week over the summer for basketball and he works on his golf game when he has time.
Outside of sports, Fumagalli in Mu Alpha Theta, the math honor society. He’s in the Math Squad, and has competed in a couple of math competitions.
He’s also in the Spanish Honor Society. The Spanish Honor Society participates in community service by running bake sales and donating the money to good causes.
Fumagalli is involved in the Student Government Association (SGA). This year he’s on the executive SGA as treasurer. Previously he was a representative for his advisory.
Each grade has its own SGA to run within the SGA to run its activities and then there is the one to run the whole school.
Although not yet a senior, Fumagalli has been thinking about potential college majors and colleges to apply to next year.
“I know that I’d like to go towards computer science. I like coding,” he says. “I did a week-and-a-half at Northwestern on engineering to see how that would be. They showed us multiple fields. I think computer engineering in what I like best.”
This year he’s taking Advanced Placement Computer Science.
As far as colleges, he likes Northwestern (and Chicago) and Vanderbilt, where his older siblings attend.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
