Let’s Make Math!

Lauren SiegelLibrary, Making Math, Math at Home, Sharing Ideas, Take and Make, Ways to like math, We think math is fun!Leave a Comment

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

Laser Highlight: Achieve Rastered Lines Using Vector Mode

Melissa WilkinsonLaser Techniques, Making Math, Sharing Ideas, Written by Jordan VaratLeave a Comment

Jordan Varat is our Laser Operator and Instructor at MathHappens and works with our laser to achieve maximum quality and efficiency of our prints!  Here she writes about a technique she uses to create our butterfly puzzle. Our Marjorie Rice Tessellating Pentagons #9 Butterfly Puzzle is one of our more popular puzzles right now, and it also utilizes a wonderful

AAAS-PD Conference at University of San Diego

Lauren SiegelCommunity, Community Partnerships, Conference Presentations, Making Math, Math Rooms, Sharing Ideas, We think math is fun!Leave a Comment

The American Association for the Advancement of Science – Pacific Division is a conference we’ve been interested in for several years.  In 2024,  our colleague Joan Horvath, who we’ve worked with at MakerFaire Los Angeles and other events invited us to participate in her session. Matt Hertel created a presentation to share the math room concept, where we are today

MathHappens collaboration @ The Atlanta Science Festival

Lauren SiegelCommunity, Events, Making Math, Parks & Recreation, Sharing IdeasLeave a Comment

Our partners for the booth were Geometiles and its founder Yana Mohanty who brought an amazing Olympic ring Geometiles sculpture and Professor Jason Harron of Kennesaw State University who made Pythagorean Theorem models and also brought an undergraduate with her Galton Board model. Lauren Siegel and Jordan Varat came for MathHappens with a variety of models, Infinity gum and other

Take and Make: T-Puzzles

Lauren SiegelMaking Math, Mathematical Artifacts, Sharing Ideas, Take and Make, Ways to like math, We think math is fun!Leave a Comment

The T-Puzzle is a very old puzzle and it comes in several versions.  In the version we made, the width and height are the same.   Jordan Varat cut a board with silhouettes  as puzzles that we will send to our math rooms in Austin, Mankato and Albuquerque.  Megan Do worked on the CAD files and created the printable silhouettes

Knots for Everyone! Math Teachers Circle of Austin visit Pearl St.

Lauren SiegelEvents, Intern Experience, Laser Techniques, Making Math, Sharing Ideas, We think math is fun!Leave a Comment

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

Make Education Forum 2023 Presentation: Avoiding scorch using two sided laser cutting.

Lauren SiegelCommunity, Laser Techniques, Making Math, Sharing IdeasLeave a Comment

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

Houston Science Festival: Mathematical Origami

Lauren SiegelCommunity Partnerships, Events, Houston, Intern Experience, Sharing Ideas, Take and Make, We think math is fun!Leave a Comment

On September 10, Jordan Varat and Stefany Espinoza hosted a table at the Houston Science Festival , an event co-sponsored by Bridges to Science that has the tag line “Casa to College”, because it is a celebration of Hispanic culture and learning at home designed for home educated 5th-12th grade students and their parents. We are really pleased to contribute