Author: Bard Math Circle

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Paper Plate Polyhedra – December 2012 Circle

Here are some pictures of our activity from December, 2012: Paper Plate Polyhedra. It’s amazing what you can do with a simple paper plate! A tip if you’re rushing out to buy paper plates: the cheaper the better for this one. The super fancy and durable plates don’t fold so well.

Polygonal Flower as a warmup
A chair or a puppy?
Beehive pattern

5 plates fit together
Table view. Note the icosahedron mid-table.

First fingers, then hair pins hold plates together
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The Mathematics of Chalk

Dear Math Circlers,

Our monthly math circle is finally here! Please join on Saturday, May 11, 2013, from 1-3pm at the Kingston Library (55 Franklin Street, Kingston, NY), where we’ll combine our math enrichment activities with the library’s annual Chalk Walk. After our initial computations upstairs in the Community Room, we’ll leave behind the tomes, manuscripts and books, and head outside to the library’s beautiful garden exterior, to decorate the surrounding sidewalk. It’s the Kingston Library’s annual Chalk Walk, so we won’t be the only ones.

                   

As always, we feature mathematical puzzles and logical games, a sheet of insightful problems, and a hands-on math project that you can take home. This time, however, the hands-on project will be made with chalk, and you’ll leave it on the sidewalk. You’re welcome to snap photos, though, and take those home.

The mathematical theme this month is an amalgamation of some special triangles and friendly fractals. What do Pascal’s Triangle and Sierpiński’s Triangle have in common? Who can produce the most stunning fractal in chalk? This email contains some fractal images that you might try out on Saturday, but feel free to bring your own.

See you on Saturday!

Please Bring:
* Sunscreen / Umbrella / Sunglasses
* Camera
* Extra chalk, although the library will provide plenty
* A bottle of water – stay hydrated!
* Your favorite fractal! Try a google search for inspiration.

3rd Annual kingston Library Chalk Walk
This Saturday from 12:30 PM to 3:00 PM
Artists of all ages and skill levels are invited to participate in our Third Annual Chalk Walk.
The Chalk Walk will showcase community artwork and foster self-expression!
Artists will be assigned a 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 foot space to create a design. Chalk will be provided.
There will also be prizes, music, and food.
The event is free and will be held rain or shine. It is a smoke-free event.
Japheth

P.S.: The Bard academic year is coming to an end, so this is your chance to say goodbye to your favorite Bard Math Majors, and wish them good luck after graduation.
—
Japheth Wood, PhD
Mathematician at the Bard Masters of Arts in Teaching Program
                   


P.S.: The intent of each session is to create a friendly and safe context for exploration and mathematical thinking. We provide games and puzzles that help build mathematical intuition and logical thinking, a hands-on activity that results in a mathematical artifact to take home, and a sheet of math problems that features challenges at the middle school level.

Our activities are designed with middle school students in mind, but everyone is welcome.

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Círculo de Matemáticas KINGSTON con Sr. Madera

From Las Noticias del 13–19 febrero, 2013:


Círculo de Matemáticas 
KINGSTON – Cada segundo sábado del mes, a la 1:00 pm (y hasta junio) se ofrece en la Biblioteca Pública de Kingston una clase de diversión matemática para todos aquellos jóvenes en edad escolar.
Entre las actividades, aparecen rompecabezas de matemáticas, juegos de lógica, resolución de problemas y un proyecto práctico matemáticas.
La clase es presentada por el matemático y profesor de Bard College, Jafet Madera, y un grupo de estudiantes de postgrado.
La biblioteca, que se encuentra en el 55 de la Franklin STreet en Midtown Kingston. O, puede llamar l Biblioteca al (845) 331-0507 o www.kingstonlibrary.org.
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New! Documents page.

I’ve just added a Documents page. Right now, you can download problem sets for the math circle we run in Kingston. I’ll add additional documents later.
To visit the page, just click on the documents tab up there in the toolbard.

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January 2013 Update

Dear Bard Math Circle Community,

In November last year the Bard Math Circle offered the AMC 8 Math Competition for the first time, and had a fantastic turnout. Forty eight middle school students from around the area came to Bard College for this national exam, and worked on 25 mathematical problems in a 40 minute period.

The problems were challenging far beyond what students normally encounter in school: the median score was 9 problems correct (there was no penalty for a wrong answer or for guessing). For some this was a humbling experience (but not a humiliating one, I hope). There was a excitement about sharing solutions at our December math circles, and a lot of learning going on.

The AMC 8 Results are in!

According to the official report on the exam, there was one perfect score at Bard, by Sanath Kumar, who traveled to Bard from Westchester County with his family. Sanath was 9 years old at the time of AMC 8, and has since turned 10. He is in grade 6 at Our Montessori School. Congratulations, Sanath, and thanks for taking the contest at Bard College!

The next highest scores were:

  • Michael Liu, a student at Bailey MS in Kingston, grade 8. 
  • Katie Houston, a student at Miller MS in Kingston, grade 7.
  • Twins Erik Simon and Henry Cowherd of Ichabod Crane MS in Valatie, both grade 7.
A hearty congratulations to every student who took the exam! You learned some math along the way, and had fun doing it. For links to nicely written solutions, please see previous posts. 
If you would like a printed solution packet (while they last), then come by a math circle for a copy. If you’d like to know your score, please send a friendly email to bardmathcircle@gmail.com or stop by the next math circle meeting in Kingston on February 9.

The Parent Survey

While the middle school students were taking the exam their parents filled out a survey. The results were very positive (which is called a selection bias in statistical studies) but gave lots of useful information towards future programming.
There was interest in:
  • a more sustained math circle experience, such as, a 10-session semester program or summer day program. 
  • math circles at other libraries and as an after-school program at schools around the area.
  • volunteering for the Bard Math Circle.
Please follow our blog (bardmathcircle.blogspot.com) and our email announcements for information on future initiatives based on the survey. Thanks for filling out the survey, parents!

Alcumus for online learning

As an informal first step towards a more sustained math circle experience, I invite those math circle students who are focused on solving challenging problems to sign up for Alcumus, a free online problem system offered by the Art of Problem Solving. Alcumus has over 5,000 challenging math problems with full solutions, and is great for student practice. If you’re interested in helping me try out this system, please do the following:
  1. Open a free account on the Art of Problem Solving website, www.artofproblemsolving.com.
  2. If you are under 13 years old, you will be directed to print out the COPPA form for your parents to fill out and send in. This is important, so please do it, even though it will take longer.
  3. Log into Alcumus by clicking on the link in the top navigation menu. Try some problems.
  4. Email me with your Art of Problem Solving name so I can add you to the Bard Math Circle course.
  5. Start solving! I will seek ways to connect your online work with our Kingston Library meetings, while not detracting from everyone’s mathematical experience, even if they are not problem-focused.
If you have trouble getting started on the system, please email me, and I’ll try to help.
The Alcumus system is open to anyone, so once we get it going, it will be fun to invite friends, siblings, parents and teachers.
Here’s to our math circles in 2013!
Japheth Wood
Bard Math Circle co-director
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Museum of Math : First Impressions

I have never been so hyper coming from a museum in my life! Today I went to the new Museum of Math in New York City and boy did I have a blast. The exhibits lend themselves to a variety of topics ranging from Emily Noether’s work on noncommutative algebra (simplified with a bird in a bowl) to a visual representation of a statistical distribution using a smaller version of the game Plinko from The Price is Right. I was thoroughly entertained and informed. There’s so much to math that lends itself to beautiful things and unique interpretations, this museum does that well. If you ever have the opportunity to go see it, I highly recommend it. It’s still a new museum so I expect more exhibits will be on their way.

If you want a virtual tour of the place check out this link

http://www.businessinsider.com/museum-of-math-in-manhattan-2012-12?op=1

For information about the Museum of Math and their programs, check out their website http://momath.org/

For now, I’m FREEZING! I’m going to read a math book and make a mug of hot cocoa. Stay warm and we’ll see you soon!

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AMC 8 Solutions

The AMC 8 Solutions have been published on the AMC website. But the real fun is happening at the Art of Problem Solving resource wiki, where you can already read nicely written solutions.
If you kept a record of the answers you submitted, you can calculate your informal score (out of 25). How did you do?
My informal score is 23. I had a lot of fun working on these problems (without a time constraint) during the week after the AMC 8, while riding around on the NYC subway, shuttling between appointments. I missed problems 21 and 22, mainly because I didn’t read carefully what was being asked. On the other hand, it’s been a long time since I was in middle school. I think I would also have really enjoyed them way back then!
Please leave a comment about your experience with the AMC 8. What were your favorite problems? Do you have a solution you’re proud of? What did you miss, and why? If you can join us on Saturday, December 8th, we’ll share some solutions at the math circle meeting at the Kingston Library, 1pm-3pm.
See you there!

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Is a Turkey with a Turkey inside (Turkey)^2?

Happy Thanksgiving from Bard Math Circle! 
Before you pass out from tryptophan or sleep to catch some amazing sales on Black Friday, sink your teeth into ViHart’s latest video! 
If we think of each bird as its own function we can treat this…Frankenturkey as a composition* of them! 
Turkey(Duck(Chicken(Egg))) 
* In the context of functions, function composition is having functions within functions. It’s like Inception but mathematicians did it first.
Follow us on Twitter!! 
https://twitter.com/BardMathCircle
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AMC 8 Exams are on their way back

Good Morning,
The AMC 8 exam was last Tuesday, and 48 middle school students gathered at Bard College to face this challenging national exam. We collected the exam booklets at the end of the contest, to help ensure the integrity of the AMC 8. Now that the testing security window is over, the exams are on their way back to the students.
If you took the AMC 8, you should soon receive your exam booklet. If it does not arrive, or if you would like another copy (we have a few extras), we’ll bring them to the next math circle meeting at the Kingston Library on Saturday, December 8th, where we’ll discuss some of the problems (optional – we’ll still have a nice collection of math activities to choose from).
Can’t wait for Kingston? The official solutions will soon be published on the AMC Website, but the real fun is on the Art of Problem Solving Forum, where students around the country post and discuss their own solutions.
The AMC graders are hard at work, and as soon as they tell us how we did, we’ll share the results here and on our webpage.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Japheth