I am under the impression that such things do/can exist, but ad hoc. For example, if you were to take extracurricular lessons at a RSM or similar private tutoring business, you could/would probably find a number of similarly inclined teens who might be interested in creating a circle.
Similarly, my experience attending a science & math magnet school in the 90s was that -- basically mirroring my later experience in college -- a subset of the kids taking advanced math classes in high school naturally tended toward hanging out & studying/practicing/researching together.
More formally, there are tons[1] of local, state, regional and national math competitions that target elementary, middle and high school students, and -- just like robotics -- it's up to volunteers (teachers, students, parents) at the school level to decide whether to invest time & resources to create a local team/club.
When I was in school, we had MathCounts teams at younger ages, and Math Olympiad (and Science Bowl & Science Olympiad -- my team made it to the national event in Science Bowl, actually) in high school. I'm under the impression that this is pretty common, at least in urban/suburban areas.
Similarly, my experience attending a science & math magnet school in the 90s was that -- basically mirroring my later experience in college -- a subset of the kids taking advanced math classes in high school naturally tended toward hanging out & studying/practicing/researching together.
More formally, there are tons[1] of local, state, regional and national math competitions that target elementary, middle and high school students, and -- just like robotics -- it's up to volunteers (teachers, students, parents) at the school level to decide whether to invest time & resources to create a local team/club.
When I was in school, we had MathCounts teams at younger ages, and Math Olympiad (and Science Bowl & Science Olympiad -- my team made it to the national event in Science Bowl, actually) in high school. I'm under the impression that this is pretty common, at least in urban/suburban areas.
[1] https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/List_of_Unite...