To find out how many students from the math club went to the soap box derby, we can multiply the number of vans by the number of students each van can hold.
The math club has 2 vans, and each van can hold 6 students:
\[ \text{Total students from math club} = \text{Number of vans} \times \text{Capacity of each van} = 2 \times 6 = 12 \]
So, the number of students from the math club who went to the derby is 12.