C.A.M.P 2017 Day 1

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Bard Math Circle
in ,

Greetings!

We started our day ambitiously, playing a revised version of “set” where students all got the change to meet each other, after being assigned a “set” card and being sent out to meet two others who would complete a “set” trio. It’s the CAMP’s official opinion that the students were far better at achieving this goal than any of the staff.

Since the theme for this year is mathematics, magic, and mystery the  math class today focused on card tricks and the mathematics behind it.  The first thing they did was a card trick called the “27 card trick.”  The magician lays out 27 cards in three columns of nine cards each.  They ask the audience member to pick a card and only tell the magician which column it is in.  They shuffle up the cards in a very specific way and figure out which card it was.  Students then got into groups and tried to figure out how the trick works.  Frances then got the  class together and then explained it.

Frances then demonstrated the “missing card” trick where the  magician guesses which card is missing from the deck.  The  magician asks the audience member  to pick a card and keep it, and not show it.  The magician then starts setting individual cards on the table and eventually guesses the card in the audience members hand.

One Student Learns The Art Of Deception 
 
 
In the mathematical art section, students were asked to take the beginning steps in creating their own geometrical puzzles. At first, they were given some basic parameters about how to break a square into different pieces and after outlining the process, they began creating their own clay models, materializing these different their drawings. These pieces will be used to  draft various mental challenges they can pose to friends or family: the puzzle is to reconstruct an image from an assortment of small shapes.

The computer science class started with a small exercise demonstrating the differences between the natural language we use everyday and a programming language. The students were asked to write a list of commands that would make Matt (the instructor) draw a diamond shape on the board. To the frustration of all students, none of the attempts were successful. This showed how rigorous and specific a programming language is. Then the students were introduced to Processing, the software they’re going to learn and use in the next few days.

After lunch, students divided up into three groups for afternoon activities.  The three activities offered today were hiking to the Parliament of Reality, working on solving the Rubik’s Cube, and drawing portraits of each other.

Blog by Maya Schwartz, Kate Blaine, Marysia Tran, and Andres Mejia

Japheth Wood

I’m Japheth Wood (he/him), the Bard Math CAMP co-director, and a math professor at Bard College. CAMP (which is an acronym for Creative and Analytical Math Program) is a very special week of the year for our young math community. It's inspiring to see our students return year after year. This is our 11th summer of CAMP! We're back once again on the idyllic Bard College campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, and thankful to the CAMP students, parents, and staff, for making this mathemagical week happen. Notably, we've (finally) had our first CAMP reunion this past June, an event that I know will grow to be an integral part of what we do.

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Frances Stern

My name is Frances Stern (she/her/hers)! I’ve been teaching math at CAMP since the first year, making sure our math theme has a connection to art and computer. It’s fun to show students math that they don’t see in school. I've retired from daily teaching but continue to teach for the New York Math Circle & students who are seeking more math in their lives. My hobbies include learning to draw, paint, & juggle, reading, walking & folk dancing. I’ve written 2 books for teachers and parents called “Adding Math, Subtracting Tension” (for different age-ranges of children). They pay as much attention to how to keep out of a fight (what many parents told me is a problem) as they do to math.

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