We are very excited to have a real Vara Chain! To relive the suspenseful opening of the box, check out these 1, 2, 3 riveting videos. Or just zoom in on the letter and read it : )
MakerFaire Austin 2019- Featuring 3 Women Mathematicians
We had displays on Karen Uhlenbenk, Mary Boole, and Marjorie Rice. Some people wanted to see a Voronoi pattern in a dragonfly wing, others designed and colored Marjorie Rice’s Pentagon # 13 and others were fascinated by Mary Boole’s Curve Stitching.
Golden Ratio at Pioneer Farms
Pioneer Farms presented the Golden Ratio to visitors along with information about prairie animals. From Claire Steffen: I wanted to let you know that people really enjoyed learning about the golden ratio on Saturday. I had one woman remark– “I’m 42, how did I not know about this?” Another man was very interested and when we were done, went to
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Gunnery Quadrant for Cannons!
Mike Bailey of the Brazoria County Historical Museum provided us this photo. He is using our model Gunner’s Quadrant with a cannon there at the Museum. We based our model on the one seen above in an article on Nicholas Tartaglia, the inventor of ballistics. https://www.famousscientists.org/niccolo-tartaglia/
MathHappens Conversation Cart at the Texas State History Museum
Quan Vuong and Samantha Trevino have been sharing some navigation innovations that allowed La Salle and other Explorers to cross to the new world with Bullock visitors on Tuesdays from 12 -3. Today they are talking about Mercator Maps, the distortion that occurs when you project to a flat surface and also how the ships navigators used the sighting of
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Survey Math and Methods at Pioneer Farms
Gunter chains, measurement tape, and an interactive scenario about unconventional survey methods.
Calculate like its 1878 at Pioneer Farms
Pioneer Farms is pioneering integrating math into their regular programming.
MathHappens @ the Thinkery with Marjorie Rice Tessellating Pentagons
Favorite quote: “Oh my gosh! I can feel my brain working”. We had a great time at the Thinkery’s Community Spotlight: Women in STEAM. Thanks to Halle Herzog, Kyla Kalugden and Cassandra Gonzalez. We featured the irregular pentagon tilings and artistic butterfly stylings of Marjorie Rice. Marjorie Rice found 4 of the remaining 6 types that were still unidentified in
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MathHappens Mailroom – What did we get?
I still need to track down “authorities” to verify, but this appears to be a real handwritten letter or speech written by a Robert Creuzbauer, a Texas surveyor about the VARA and Chain standards for measuring land. It gives a very clear description of the Vara standard and how it relates, or doesn’t relate to the Chains used elsewhere and
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