The MOXI is a museum in Santa Barbara, CA with a maker focus that has created a space that is both soothing and inspiring. We met STEAM Education manager Jasmine Thompson at our booth at a museum conference in Chicago in Fall of 2024. She was interested in using some of our materials in their programs. So of course we
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Sunday Funday means hands on activities at the Neill-Cochran House Museum in Austin, TX and MathHappens was the invited program on Sunday March 9, 2025. On special exhibit currently, but also part of the regular collection… Quilts!!. This museum invites visitors to “step into Austin History” and the quilt collection is a visitor favorite. Paul Cato, Communications Director at
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Wieland Elementary’s family night was a great opportunity to meet some kids and families and share some of our favorite optical illusions, and amusements. Tommi Linn brought hinged mirror books, markers and paper for free design. The Hexagon puzzle was a real joy for our littlest visitors. We let parents know about the Math Room open 9-3 on Saturdays and
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We love a special event at MathHappens. We do several dozen per year through our local partnerships as well as with distant organizations. An example of an event type we do is running our usual math room programming on a special day. This year, we spent Presidents Day at The Works Museum in Bloomington, MN. Our math room there is
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We were invited recently to a STEAM Fair in Minneapolis. It took place Saturday, January 25 and was sponsored by a local chapter of Jack and Jill of America, an organization dedicated to nurturing future African-American leaders by working with children and their mothers. We brought most of our usual favorites—such as butterfly puzzles, and Block by Block, Jr. (a
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Click through here for the whole presentation. We do three math “experiments” in the session all using “calling cards” other materials common in the books are corks, wine bottles, knives, candles and other handy household items from the 1890s. These are so much fun!
MathHappens intern Asa Grumdahl is interested in Heesch numbers. Unfortunately, a formal presentation of Heesch numbers and questions surrounding them is too complicated as a starting place to engage the general public. The question then was “How might we engage novices in this sophisticated bit of mathematics?” Step one was to name this activity we were designing. “The Surrounding Game”
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Bubble Tiles were inspired by a textile pattern in a book by the Japanese artist Hokusai. Find a link to his book on this info sheet. The idea is that a circle can be made of 6 60 degree arcs. Each arc can be inverted, or not and all the possible combinations make a tileset that has 13, or 14
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What happens when Mardi Nott, Austin High School Math Department Chair, Academic UIL Coordinator, Mu Alpha Theta Sponsor, Calculator Applications Coach, President of Austin Area Council of Mathematics, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Benin ’91-’94), Member of: Delta Kappa Gamma, PEO, and Epsilon Kappa Omicron member brings a group of teachers to MathHappens Headquarters on a Saturday in mid November? They
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Texas Discovery Gardens at Fair Park in Dallas, Texas is a great place! Their vision is “to provide a safe and natural oasis where the Dallas Community and other visitors can have fun while they Explore, Experience, Entertain, and Educate themselves.” We are very excited to be a part of it. Find out more on their website. From 11 am
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