Friday marked our final day of CAMP. Despite the sadness of the end of the Bard Math Circle CAMP quickly approaching, we were able to have an awesome and fun last day that began with our mathematicians working to solve a number of math problems and puzzles. Some of the problems were taken from the AMC, a competition that Bard Math Circle hosts at Bard every year, while others were found by our high school volunteers to let our mathematicians warm up their brains! These bright young students were able to whiz through many of these problems on their own and the more difficult ones they discussed with their peers to try to find a solution.
Our schedule was a little different for our last day. We had gotten far enough in our math class to combine the class with computer science! Side by side, we compared a list of how to create fractals geometrically, mirrored by the code that would be entered into the program in NetLogo to achieve the same transformation of a figure. Together, we learned the specific code that creates a scaling transformation and the code that translates our x-coordinates. Then, we split up in pairs to input this code and try to discover the specific commands that would program the proper translation of the y-coordinates. We all came up with the code that will generate the Sierpinski triangle in NetLogo and then some of us even went on to develop the code that would create other fractals from the Yale Fractal Lab worksheet that we had received in math class the day before. We were able to learn how to turn the rules we discovered the day before into code that would create these fractals!
In art class we finished designing and altering our fractal lamps in order to have them ready to present to our parents and friends at the open house that was happening at the end of the day. After finishing the creation of the lamps we discussed the installation of our art pieces and ventured out into the lobby of the RKC building (as well as some other rooms in the building) to install our art in beautiful and interesting ways. Some of the lamps were placed in a dark room with lights strategically placed within them. While others were attached to strings and then hung over the railings above the lobby. The lamps hung perfectly in front of the windows letting the light shine through them in just the right way to display the beautiful ways in which we had cut and sculpted the paper to make the lamps: finally now illuminated in the way they were meant to be.
