On Thursday, November 13, we were thrilled to welcome a group of enthusiastic fifth- and sixth-grade students from Kirby Hall School in Austin, Texas for a hands-on field trip filled with curiosity, creativity, and discovery. The visit began with an open exploration session using our Open Play Kit, giving students a chance to dive into math concepts through playful, creative
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This art piece was a part of a traveling exhibit called Geometry of Hope that came to Austin Texas while I was teaching at ACE Academy. Art teacher Martha Merry and I wanted to collaborate on on art and math field trip. The materials are simple, the connection to the art is authentic and the mathematics is accessible, but also
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MathHappens Foundation was delighted to participate in SXSW EDU 2025 right here in our headquarter city of Austin, TX. The conference provided a stimulating environment for exchanging ideas and fostering valuable connections. We participated this year as an exhibitor, and used the opportunity to recreate a Math Room! Throughout the education conference, our exhibit in the Expo Hall was a
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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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The Impossible Cylinder is a new model we recently made in our workshop and added to our Math Rooms and exhibits. It has been well received by people of various ages, which we love and think makes for a fun addition to our spaces. The impossible cylinder illusion, also known as the Ambiguous Cylinder Illusion, works by tricking the brain
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MathHappens has been growing, and we now have locations in four states! We have partners, employees, and interns working in Texas, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Washington, but we still love being able to offer our remote internship experience to students in any state! This past fall and winter, I had the pleasure of working with Cole Parsons, an engineering student
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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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