Bovey Rao loves math so much he can't help but sing when he's hunched over a problem.

"It relaxes me and helps me focus," said the Midvale Middle School eighth-grader of his habit of humming top radio hits while he tackles difficult equations. "It drowns out other things."

Bovey, also a Rubik's Cube wiz, was the only Utah student selected to participate in the United States of America Junior Mathematical Olympiad on April 27-28. Some 233 elite math students in the nation qualified for the prestigious competition based on their performance on two tests, the AMC 10 and the AIME. For the Olympiad, the young mathematicians, sequestered in their respective schools, attempted to solve six problems in nine hours, 4½ hours each day over two days.

"I didn't really have high expectations," Bovey said. "I just wanted to go in relaxed and have fun. I thought they were really interesting questions."

Bovey had a classroom all to himself during the contest, so he wasn't shy about humming while he worked.

"It's just really fulfilling to solve interesting problems that you've never seen before," said the 14-year-old from Sandy, who wasn't among the winners but was thrilled to get to participate in the prestigious Olympiad. As one of the younger students in the contest, he has two more years of eligibility.

"I have an advanced degree in engineering so I know how far young kids can go, but he surprises me sometimes," said Bovey's dad, Richard Rao, of his son's gift for numbers.

Rao was surprised again when Bovey earned a perfect score on the AMC 8 and the highest score in Utah on the AMC 10, which is aimed at high school sophomores. He's only in eighth-grade, but he beat out all the ninth- and tenth-graders, too.

"I thought, 'really? Are you sure?' " the elder Rao said.

Bovey's mathematical exploits are many. He was one of four Utahns who qualified for the MATHCOUNTS National Competition held in Washington, D.C., last weekend.

"Math is fun," he said. "There's so many ways you can do it, so many different fields."

Bovey, who plans to attend either the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the California Institute of Technology, said his math skills improved exponentially while attending Math Zoom Academy in California last summer. Despite all his success, he's not satisfied with where he stands.

"I still need to get better," he said. "At math camp, there were a lot of people there that were light years ahead of me. I want to improve and get as good as them."

ndicou@sltrib.com