We welcomed the Math Teacher’s Circle of Austin to our Austin location and workshop on Pearl Street Thursday September 28th. They brought the food (BBQ) and we brought knots, and knot tiles. The visit included a workshop tour that included 3d printing, laser cutting pythagorean dissections and more. Thanks to Megan Do who designed the knot tiles, Ella Basken who
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The first 3 puzzle pieces are cut from one side using the low speed and a high power needed to cut through 1/4″ plywood. The black scorch has to be sanded or wiped away adding significantly to post laser treatments. One approach if your laser is not cutting through is to run a second pass. This results in more
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Smarty Cat was a toy from the 1950s. It’s not really a slide rule, but it does show you all the math facts from 2×2 to 9×9. As you go you need fewer and fewer numbers because 9×2 is already in as 2×9 for example. We are giving away sets where you can draw your own cat/mouse/ghost or whatever animal
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Update: Ella Basken created this Presi slideshow of her conference experience. Its great! At the Construct 3d 2023 conference in NY Ella and Jordan are presenting a variety of models and a poster about the use of these models to enhance mathematics education. You can contact Ella at: ebasken@utexas.edu and Jordan at: jordan@varatenterprises.com Ella is our 3d print expert and
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We had a great visit to the Pearl Street workshop and gallery today by professor Dawn Kidd, an Adjunct Instructor at Lamar University. Her students are preservice teachers who will be teaching deaf and hard of hearing students. They started with a workshop visit with Jordan where they learned how to make a heart – square- circle dissection model. Ella
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We have been sharing ideas, materials, CAD files and finished models with a variety of partners. The folks at SUMM, the Seattle Universal Math Museum has been bringing math activities to the greater Seattle area as well as attending teaching conferences and hosting events. These photos are exciting for us because SUMM partnered with a local makerspace, sourced and manufactured
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Melissa Wilkinson and Megan Do were at the Pflugerville Public Library Maker Pfest Event June 3rd to share some of our favorite maker projects, including the brand new Spectre tile, puzzle a day, egg tangrams, cars with unusual wheels and more with this community just north of Austin. Unlike the old “new” tile, this one tessellates without a pattern and
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Kimberly Kinder is a high school math teacher who is really passionate about bringing new learning experiences for her students. She drove 12 hours to come to Austin because she’s really interested in making some of the models we have and in making her own. We are really excited about supporting her work. Kimberly not only selected some models and
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April 1st, 2023 We staffed a booth at Maker Faire Los Angeles. We brought some of our favorite models, activities and giveaways and we were also able to bring the brand new Hat Tile or Mono Tile newly discovered by an amateur mathematician. Intern Ella Basken made the trip and did an outstanding job representing with the team. Read Ella’s
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Here are the CAD files we have so far. You should find AI, CorelDraw, SVG and EPS in these folders. We are not finished putting info on the puzzles, etc, so they are “drafts”. Please help yourself: Hat Tile Frames for Pattern Blocks: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZjuZCc3k03KoHrcOjYicwiu5ZTaVfUB1?usp=sharing Hat Tile puzzle and/or Print Sheet https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/177BM6RlwbfdT-kX7dUzWYCxD8hpxH34g?usp=sharing Find links to other frames for 21st Century Pattern
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