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 at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. (Fun fact- Cole also plays in the KSU percussion ensemble!)
At our first meeting, Cole told me he was inspired by a past remote intern’s project that focused on making a 5th grade math toolkit. (You can read about Emma Starkman’s project here.) From that inspiration and through his own ideas and talks with his former 5th grade teacher Megan Mallon and his mentor at KSU David Auckly, Cole designed and made a system of gears to aid in the teaching and learning of common denominator, greatest common factor, least common multiple, ratios, and operations with fractions. Below is Cole’s first-hand account of his remote internship with MathHappens.
Through my internship with MathHappens I was able to combine my interests in 3D modeling and design with my skills and passion with mathematics, ultimately spreading knowledge through fun and hands-on learning. I worked with a local 5 th grade elementary teacher to choose a concept within their curriculum and then develop models that allowed the students to better understand that concept. Through physical representation of an idea of mathematics students can understand why it might be important and how some property comes about, all while, hopefully, having fun!
Working with my supervisor, the 5th grade teacher, and a professor at my university, I came up with the idea to create a customizable set of model gears for my project. These would allow students to explore several different concepts, including mathematical ideas like fractions, adding or multiplying fractions, finding a common denominator, and countless more, as well as practical concepts like gear ratios, gear trains, force translation, and more. I began my internship by learning and refining my skills with computer modeling software, including editing SVG files, 3D modeling with CAD, etc. I developed virtual prototypes of my gears at this point, coming up with the idea of magnetic axes and gears that can be stacked and slid onto these axes. With a magnetic board anyone could set up whatever gear train they’d like.
Next, I started to make physical prototypes and eventually the final models (after several intermediate versions to work out the tolerances necessary). This involved laser-cutting the layers of my gears onto plywood sheets and gluing these layers together. Etchings in the gears marked the number of teeth on side and an arrow (for ease of following rotation) on the other. Next, additional etchings in the gears marked where to drill shallower holes into the gears. Small magnets were superglued into these holes to allow for gear stacking and vertical gear trains. The axes were built with a strong neodymium magnet stuck to a cut-off dowel rod. The final versions turned out well and allowed for fun and complex configurations of gears.
After finishing my models, I brought them to the 5th grade class I first started designing for and presented my gears. Within the outreach event I gave the students time to explore the gears on their own, allowing them to play and discover applications themselves. I also presented some ideas myself, bringing to light more ideas and concepts that can be shown. Throughout the project and outreach I learned a lot about the process of teaching and how to best guide students towards learning. This included letting them experiment, questioning their discoveries, and generally guiding them towards ideas without precisely giving them an exact “way” to do something. It was enlightening and fun to work with these students and learn math together!
In all, my internship with MathHappens allowed me the opportunity to create a very interesting set of gears to allow fun in learning math. It challenged me to design the models, both within the computer and in assembly. It also taught me about the general process of learning and teaching, and how fun within learning can be – and is – so useful. I am very glad to have had the opportunities I’ve had through this internship and look forward to similar things in my future!
*If you are interested in making your own set of gears, here is the link to the xTool file*