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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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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12 Projects & Endless Hours of Creative, Math-tastic Fun! Check it out. This book was imagined and realized by MathHappens interns Saurav Gandhi and Megan Do. It contains 12 of our favorite topics, beautiful graphics and ideas. We feel really confident it can be a resource for offering math activities in a variety of settings. We are pleased to have
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Math On-A-Stick is the creation of Christopher Danielson, and as MathHappens Director of Math Play, the work continues! MOAS is a twelve day extravaganza with multiple mathematical delights. Attendance at the fair this year was 1,925,904. Matt brought parts to assemble a mathematical sculpture designed by George Hart.
Last month we concluded another successful group of MathHappens Remote internships. We had 4 students participating from UCLA, NC State, Texas Woman’s University, and Queen’s University in Toronto. At our headquarters in Austin we rely on interns to help with our mission and everyday tasks. Interns design and make new models, attend local events, and spend time assembling models to
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