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 be sent to people or used in Math Rooms, events, museums, and field trips.  The remote internship program is an extension of this experience, where we give students who are not in the Austin area the opportunity to be a part of MathHappens.  Remote interns are sent a kit in the mail that includes supplies and sample models.  After familiarizing themselves with the kit contents, the interns then design and make their own model in a local (to them) maker space.  Lastly, the remote interns host an outreach event in their community where they can showcase their model(s).

Cadence at his outreach event.

Intern Cadence McKinney from Texas Woman’s University in Dallas heard about the opportunity from a friend who had completed the internship in the fall.  Here is what he wrote after finishing his project:

    The main reason I wanted to pursue this internship was because it gave me the chance to create hands-on activities which I believe help when learning mathematical concepts. It also gave me the chance to explore the theory behind the concept. In this internship, with the help of one of my professors, I chose to do my project over Symmetry Groups in Abstract Algebra. Since this wasn’t a topic I had learned before, I had to put some time and effort into learning it, but I wanted the challenge!

     With the use of a laser cutter, I made two wooden hands-on activities to make my outreach program more interactive and collaborative. Using this equipment was something new for me; however, despite some problems, it was fun when I had gotten the hold of it! 

     For my outreach project, I invited students in our library on campus to come in for my presentation. After my presentation I let the students play with the models, and challenged them to identify all of the transformations of each shape. Although they were college students, they were super interactive and eager to complete the activity. In the end, I was able to fulfill my purpose with this position, connect with my community, and even made some new friends!

Cadence with event attendees.

     I am so thankful for this opportunity as it was super fun, and I appreciate all of the support from the staff at the MathHappens Foundation!

Sarala using her model to discuss the four color problem with students who attended her event.

Sarala Sharma, who just finished her sophomore year as a computational biology major at UCLA, did her project and outreach on Graph Theory and the Four Color Problem.

Here are some takeaways Sarala shared with me after her event (held on the UCLA campus):

1) One student shared how there are multiple solutions to the coloring algorithm depending on where you start to color from the middle.

2) One student volunteered to draw a graph based on the Edge and Vertex sets.

3) It was interesting to hear how students noticed that rotating the pieces of the circle graph changed the order of the greedy coloring algorithm. We tested the invariance of the four color problem for planar graphs with maps.

4) Students also picked up vocabulary quickly, sharing explanations for various questions.

Nina at her outreach event.

Nina Sutherland from NC State presented her area and volume of polyhedra to 5th graders at Fletcher Academy Lower School in Raleigh.  Here is part of her reflection:

     Each table of students was provided a set of triangles, squares, pentagons, and hexagons. Their first challenge was to each create a 3D shape, otherwise known as a polyhedron, with only one type of 2D shape, or polygon.With the nets of these shapes in front of them, they were to take the area and perimeter of the shapes laid out in 2D. Then, they were encouraged to combine multiple types of shapes to create their own polyhedron with under 32 polygons or make a large polyhedron within their table groups with over 32 polygons.

     It seemed like a great learning experience for these middle schoolers and was an awesome learning opportunity for myself!

Our fourth spring intern, Emma Starkman, designed and created a toolkit for 5th grade teachers and students.  She learned what subject areas to focus on and then, based on what she learned, she designed and 3D printed a kit that can be used to cover several subject areas.  She enjoyed her experience so much that she is already thinking about how to apply what she did to lower grades and how to expand her outreach!  You can read about Emma’s project here.

I am always impressed with the quality of work by our remote interns who work on their projects on their own time inspired by their own interests.  We typically start new groups in the fall, spring, and summer.  If you are interested in a remote internship with MathHappens, you can fill out this interest form and we will be in touch.