Elizabeth Lay, Claire Steffen and I had the opportunity to present a webinar through the Texas Historical Commission today. We discussed ways that museums can enhance visitor experiences with math, showed a variety of examples of math activities at museum locations and talked about our process in developing connected activities. Our Presentation Slides are here The Handout Sign up to
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Genaille-Lucas Rulers are pretty cool. They are a clever calculator that you can use to multiply some pretty big numbers. MathHappens summer staff member Anh Nguyen made a colorful set from scratch in Corel Draw that you can download and print on a laser or inkjet printer. Feel free to copy, explore, and use. It’s a great project to try
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This Geometric Transformation shows how the sum of the first 6 Odd Squares is the square of 6, or 36. Its the classic “proof without words”. Freese’s Transformation also shows this relationship, but his “squares” all have sides sqrt 1, sqrt 3, sqrt 5, and so on. Freese Corel File, Adobe Illustrator File, Jpg printable
Here’s a fun one! Inspired by a conversation with Chris Daniels of Public Math. He said roll paper around a cylinder and cut on an angle to get an ellipse and produce a sine wave. So we did! And you can too. Then you can make a roller from ellipses, reflect your sine curve and roll the elliptical roller along
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It is very exciting to see our files being used and the great results! Gotta love the math and maker communities on twitter! Thank you @MathHappensOrg https://t.co/yJ63LBiqJp — Ralph Pantozzi (@mathillustrated) March 13, 2020
Women in Mathematics! Katherine Johnson calculated trajectories, parabolic and otherwise for NASA in the 1960s. Almost 70 years earlier Mary Boole invented curve stitching to teach the mathematical properties of parabolas to children. We made some really great foldable parabolas to connect to the work of both these women in math. Here’s the laser file – we cut the holes
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Super simple and yet kind of cool. You need a machine screw, a wing nut, some scrap wood about 4″x.5″, and some stretchy elastic. Directions and Files Here. Check the video on Twitter to see how it moves. Article from American Mathematical Association here. Also if you don’t want to make from scratch, we could send you the parts. Fill
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Viang Shah created his own Corel Draw file to make this design. You are invited to make your own design files or use his which are posted in Corel, AI and SVG formats.
We are always excited when makers and maker spaces make our math models! Patrick Benfield outfitted some 8th graders with Quadrants (or Clinometers) and put this post on Instagram (click on photo below). Be sure to scroll through and also check out Patrick’s other work. You can find the files to make this here. View this post on Instagram Making
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These two Pythagorean Theorem Puzzles were a hit with Paola Garcia’s middle school students. Paola mentioned that some students who are not as facile with pen and paper exercises excelled with the wooden puzzles and that overall everyone enjoyed them. Laser cutting files are posted here. These do not have the solutions etched into the board
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