Shapes: Iconic geometry

from the circle to the Egyptian pyramids to the Taj Mahal


BBC radio broadcast from the series: The Changing World, Sept. 2011:

Thanks to my sister, Mary, for this link!
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"Structural engineer and designer Cecil Balmond probes what he calls 'iconic geometry,' shapes that have formed our thinking in science, math, and design.. "   http://www.thechangingworld.org/archives/2011/wk40.php
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One speaker was Ian Stewart, an English emeritus professor who is one of my favorites.  He often writes about the naturally occurring patterns displayed throughout nature, so that even within apparent Chaos, finding the right perspective reveals a pattern, such as with turbulence.  In a field of corn, the tassles and stalks appear to blend in chaotically with the background until you hit the right point when driving past __ at which time the rows all line up magically, only to fade away in another second!

Some of his books include:

• Nature's Numbers, the Unreal Reality of Mathematics
• Flatterland, Like Flatland Only More So 
• Does God Play Dice? The New Mathematics of Chaos  which includes showing order within chaos.

Landmark - my project

A couple of years ago, this was what I was thinking of for one module of my project - finding  a Landmark that was hard to recognize out of context, that students could solve in three ways:

• math problems on their current classroom level*
• street directions
• the student's memory.

They were given a Starting Point, looking in a certain direction and they had to find angles and lines to get there!  Sort of like a video game with measurement added! :)

For the final picture, I used a Gigapan - a panorama with great zooming resolution, then chose a landmark that was too small to see in the full view! This link was  of PPG Place (sorry, not high quality, being my first full one, taken in very cold weather so I had trouble lining it up).
This evergreen bear is actually in the Gigapan above!

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* math directions for a student might be:

To get there (as the crow flies). 

1. The game starts by facing East (0 degrees) from START (LaRoche).

2. Turn 90 degrees to the right.

3. Go 10 miles.

4. Turn 90 degrees to the left.

5. Go ¼ mile.

6. Turn 90 degrees to the left again, and look for . . .[hint given].

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Sara

Spiral Sine in Helix and Mandelbrot Plots

These are interesting math graphing links.

1. Here's a Sine Spiral Graphed on a Helix (slightly animated),
by Justin Coslor.  
http://ia700702.us.archive.org/12/items/SineSpiralGraphingForHelixOrbitTrigonometry/JustinCoslor2011SineSpiralGraphing-Animation.gif

and
2. a way to generate Mandelbrot Plots:

from http://www.flashandmath.com/advanced/mandelbrot/MandelbrotPlot.html
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Can you find any more Mandelbrot sites?
Google images of Mandelbrot plots...

This site teaches Flash as well!

Goodnight!
Sara

View 3D with your iPhone

Hi,

I've been gone so long! I decided to post interesting web sites, people, products as I find them that are related to my math project.

For today, there's a 3D viewer that attaches to your iPhone or iPod that gives you stereoscopic vision! http://www.hasbro.com/hasbromy3d/en_US/

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For developers:

"Are you interested in developing your own custom apps for Hasbro's MY3D viewer?

You've come to the right spot.

We will be releasing a MY3D SDK! " Yay!

Starting to work on handheld math map game!

It's almost Christmas, 2009.

A couple weeks ago, I went to an interesting software developer company DeepLocal, where they have "Waffle Wednesdays" for free consulting and gourmet waffles made in your favorite flavor! This seems to be a good match for trying to actually develop my math game with a handheld such as an iPhone, GPS, Google Maps, UrbanSweep (DeepLocal's way to easily create your own scavenger hunt), and Pittsburgh landmarks.

In another post, I'll show the #1 version - whole set of Pittsburgh landmarks. From these, you choose the solution to the UrbanSweep game.

Summer 2008 Additions

Hi, All,

Here are some summer additions:

• Funfunctions is beginning to work with Andy Dougherty's open source group http://frdcsa.org/
• There was an Art Show at the Alcoa Business Center, from the Warhol Museum, called GigaPan Student Project, which included GigaPans from our small beta group (Computing Workshop for Special Needs Students, teacher and students) and others . See the GigaPan Challenge at http://funfunctions.org   [Temporarily not available] for one idea of how to link them to Funfunctions.
• Collaboration with Computer Science High School teachers at a summer workshop: CS4HS at CMU, organized by Tom Cortina, which included tours of Roger Dannenberg's computer-music lab, the GigaPan 's CREATE Lab, and the CAPTCHA creator.

Sara Masters

New website

Hi, everybody,

I've just created a new Google site for sharing plans for the FunFunctions game. It's at funfunctions.org [Temporarily not available.]