Dear Math Lovers,
It’s that time of month again – the Bard Math Circle will meet on Saturday, November 10th, 1-3pm in the Kingston Library (upstairs in the Community Room). Middle school-aged students will engage in our math puzzles and logic games, work on a sheet of challenging problems, and build a math artifact to take home.
The problems this month are sample problems from the AMC-8 contest. In part, this is preparation for those students who will visit us at Bard College next Tuesday, November 13th to face the AMC-8 contest. But the real reason that we focus on a few challenging problems each month is as an entry point into beautiful mathematics, and seeing unusual and creative ways in which the mathematics we already know can be used to solve problems in ways we don’t expect. We still have room, so if you’re interested, please visit our AMC-8 Page for instructions on how to register.
The hands-on project this month is constructing a challenging puzzle known affectionately as Instant Insanity. It’s a simple-looking puzzle built of three wooden cubes and colored stickers, but as the name suggests, it’s insanely difficult. As a bonus, we’ll see a different way of considering the problem that makes the solution quite simple. And then you get to take the puzzle home to your family…
See you in Kingston this Saturday!
Mathematically,
Japheth
— 
Bard Math Circle
bardmathcircle@gmail.com
http://bardmathcircle.blogspot.com/