Author: Tsitsi Mambo

Our last day of Camp began in a flurry of activity as Campers received their T-shirts and made the final touches on the Rubik’s Cube Mosaic.

In Math class, we learned magic tricks designed to help us understand math better using addition. We finished off our lessons and challenges from the week and prepared to present our knowledge to our parents,

After, in Art, we finished the last of our clay projects and collected all the art we had created throughout the week, including our origami creations and our playing cards. We discussed and observed how these creations connected with what we had been learning about fractals.

In Computer Science, we spent the last day finishing our project of creating a Sierpinski Gasket Triangle on the Computer and also collected all of our previous codes including our bifurcation maps to show our parents during open house.

We ended camp with an Open House for parents, where the children all presented their art pieces and projects. Camp ended with lots of amazing reviews and lots of nostalgia, ready for the school year to begin.
-Tsitsi

Day 4 of C.A.M.P. began with a flurry of activity as more campers joined the effort to complete the Mosaic and taught each other new games such as Backgammon and chess.

In Computer Science, we continued on our journey to learning and mastering NetLogo. We also continued to deepen our knowledge of computers and their systems while utilizing concepts from Math to supplement our computer science lessons.

After, in Art, we finally got to work with clay. We used it to creating amazing fractal designs and also showed how precise we could be in our measuring.

Lastly, in Math, we did advanced math using fractals and learned how to calculate the dimensions of any shape. We also learned how there are more than just 1D, 2D, and 3D figures, and sometimes the dimension can be between numbers and less than one. Math challenged us to think outside of the normal constructions of what we hear in everyday life but it also pushed us to connect what we see with what we are learning.

Our electives today included capture the flag, drawing, and the Rubik’s cubes. With our Mosaic almost finished, it’s a race against time.

Day 3 of camp began with  race to complete the Rubik’s cube mosaic! This has been a lengthy task that will require manipulating 400 Rubik’s cubes.

In Computer science, we began forming fractal images through NetLogo and utilizing the concept bifurcation from Mathematics. We managed to return the output of the function we used through code thereby demonstrating the significance of computers to calculate our functions. All of this at the press of a button!

Art gave us a creative outlet as we finished creating our very own decks of cards and moved on to creating 3D figures with fractal designs.

Finally,  in our last class, Math, we learned another way to create the Sierpinski Gasket using a large sheet of paper with an equilateral triangle on it. We marked the midpoints of this triangle, and then connected all three points to create 4 triangles inside the large triangle. We then repeated  this process, finding the midpoints in each of the enclosed triangles and connecting them to create smaller triangles within a larger triangle.

For our electives, we had the option to work to complete the mosaic, to play an intense game of Mafia, or to go on a relaxing Nature Hike through the Meditation Garden. Needless to say, today was a very busy day for all our campers.

Everyone arrived bright and early full of energy for the second day of CAMP! We began with a variety of warm-up activities to get our brains on track for more math and logic. We had teams learning to solve Rubik’s cubes, campers pairing up to play Rush Hour and other campers solving a variety of puzzles.

Soon after in computer science, we continued our challenge from the previous day with some groups going more in-depth to understand computers and other using NetLogo to make create variables such as turtles and cows that can draw squares in the language. They were challenged to be able to kill their turtles and perform various other actions on these variables. Their next challenge: Functions.

In Math class, campers reviewed information from yesterday and then dove deeper into fractals. They analyzed the rules for creating the Sierpinski Gasket fractal.  They began forming connections between the mathematical connection of fractals to their application in Computer Science.

Lastly, in Art, we began making our very own deck of cards! Each camper made their own set, with 4 houses. They had the option to make up their own houses or use the traditional hearts/spades/diamonds/clovers. We used stamps and various other art materials to create them.

At the end of the day we hiked to the Parliament of Reality and learned how to grass whistle. Others took their creativity to the studio and went painting and the last group had an intense Rubik’s cube championship.

-Tsitsi

It’s the first day and there’s lots of excitement and nervousness as old friends connect and meet new friends over an assortment of games including rush hour, human feline puzzles and huge 10 person rounds of Set.

In Computer Science, our teacher Yulia pretended to be a Robot and challenged the campers to right specific instructions that would lead her to draw a square onto the  board. We divided up into groups of three and our biggest challenge was to write instructions as specific as possible otherwise our robot had a lot of room for misinterpretation. The goal was to demonstrate how coding requires precision in wording, efficiency and thoroughness so that Yulia would follow their exact directions and draw a vertical line up instead of drawing a vertical line down. We then shifted to the computers and focused on the basics  of computer science and how it compares to mathematics.  After a brief review, we began exploring NetLogo, where we hope to be able to make our variables, turtles, draw a square  like we did our Robot Yulia.

In Mathematics, we started with listening to Michael Frame’s Yale TedX talk.  We learned about fractals, which are patterns made from infinite repeats, but do not exist in real life since there are a finite number of repeats. After the video, we moved on to creating the fractals. To create the fractals:

1. Draw a large Square on Graph Paper, labeling the x and y coordinates up to 1
2. Mark the coordinates(0,0),(0,1),(1,0),(1,1),20 other points within the square and three points on the edges

1. • To each point: Halve the x, and y and lightly plot in a new color and connect the two points
   • Add 1/2 in the x direction to the shrunken value from step 1 and plot in this same new color
   • Add 1/2 in the y  direction to the shrunken value from step 1 and plot in this same new color
   • Take a new color and apply the same rules to these new points . Repeat. Observe the movement of the point as it forms a fractal.

In Art, we explored centuries old puzzles including Tangrams, T puzzles, Mysto Squares and so much more. We collaborated with friends new and old to defeat the mystery behind each game.

The students ended their first day at CAMP with an intense games of 4 corners, sharks and minnows while also having the option to hike to Blithewood to view the lawn razing goats, or practice the lost art of paper folding: Origami.

-Tsitsi