MathHappens @ SXSW Edu was an opportunity to bring our approach to math enrichment to a world audience. We kicked off the booth with our senior team members: Matt Hertel, Lauren Siegel, Jordan Varat, Melissa Wilkinson and Christopher Danielson who came down to Austin from St. Paul, MN. It was a great way for us to spend some time together as well as network with the conference attendees and we even attended some conference sessions. Naila Hajiyeva made sure the booth was running smoothly on day 1.
The booth featured pictures of our outreach work in museums, libraries, through our math rooms and conference presentations and was very busy all three days. We brought a range of models and interactive displays including the platonic solid stack illusion for photos, actual platonic solids, infinity gum and some optical illusions to give away.
Across the three days we attended sessions, met educators from all over the US and the world as well as some from right here in Austin. Jaiden Suta and Alexa Hernandez, both students at Texas State University and experienced MathHappens facilitators were our anchor team for day 2!
On day 3 we had some special guest facilitators from Austin School for the Driven, an innovative concept for middle school empowering students with a unique environment of experiential learning headed by Ken Hawthorn. The students took turns working with Jordan and Stefany explaining the optical illusion, curry paradox and infinity gum to the booth visitors. They did a great job!
Giveaways included the Curry Triangle Paradox – how is there one more space?, Infinity Gum – eat 1/2 at a time, never run out, and the Which One is Larger optical illusion (not pictured).