Family Math

Math Camp 2009 will soon be upon us. One new feature I hope to add is the recruitment of student reporters who will post daily installments to this blog. Stay tuned.

At our morning meeting we came to a startling realization: we had the equipment and know-how to create a half-hour video of our work for the student presentation at noon. The only thing we lacked was time. We decided to go for it anyway. Ryan Z. began assembling SeeLogo screenshots into a video; Larry and Gabe taped about ten one-minute videos of the Scratchers describing their work; and Gabe put together a short piece about the robots and their creators. Things looked good as the parents began to arrive. Carlyn created a wonderful spread of the food that parents had brought and everyone settled into their seats. The show began and...we couldn't get the sound to work! And one of our video files seemed to be incompatible! We struggled, persevered, and put on a memorable show. Finally, we said goodbye until next year. 

But wait! It doesn't have to to be next year. We are planning to put on at leas two math fairs, and several ongoing programs. We'll keep you posted.

Thanks everyone for helping out with this wonderful program.

What kind of creature eats an angle and spits out a length? Or turns a growing quantity into an up and down quantity? The sine function of course! This morning Larry gave a little talk about our friend Mr. Sine and some of the useful things he can do. Programmers use him to make a sprite go round and round. Carpenters use him to figure out the length of the sides of a triangle. And Mr. Sine appears in mother nature in such things as light waves or the hours of daylight plotted over a year. Larry demonstrated his Lego sine drawing machine and a sand pendulum that draws the double-sine shapes known as lissajous figures.

After lunch we constructed the traditional Math Camp labyrinth. As in years past, we created a 200-foot labyrinth made entirely out of small stones. We then walked to the center of the labyrinth, reflected a moment, and returned to the outside.

"Awesome!" "That is totally cool!" These are actual quotes of math campers as they witnessed a software showcase presented by math camp veterans Ryan Govostes and Jasper Clarkberg. Ryan presented mathematically-based artwork he created using the programming language "Processing": undulating psychedelic globules that responded to the gentle touch of the mouse; a swirling dancing entrancing ever-changing web; and ghostly wisps left in the wake of mysterious invisible planetoids. Impressive!

Then Jasper demonstrated some of his works-in-progress using Game Maker, a game development environment that is a perfect step up for someone who has outgrown Scratch. And Jasper also demonstrated Phun, much to the delight of the crowd. Phun is a physics-rendering "game" which allows you to create virtual materials, throw them together, and watch them interact.

Processing, Game Maker, and Phun are all freely available on the web. See our Math Club section for more discussions about math/game-making/art software.

Today we saw a strange sequence of events unfold at Ithaca College: a cardboard city took form on lawn, rose to it's full height, and then met its destruction at the hands of its creators. This city was of course a creation of the creative Math Campers currently occupying the third floor of Williams Hall. The city was the brainchild of Mari Mitchel, who has written a book on the subject of constructing with kids and cardboard.

Math Campers continued their explorations of Scratch, SeeLogo, and Lego robots. Scratchers have been posting their work online. See:
http://scratch.mit.edu/users/mathcamp2008

In spite of a few glitches (like the power going out for half an hour) we're off to a good start. We warmed up with a few "getting to know you" exercises, for example constructing the world's first human "STARSKIP 29 5" figure using 29 campers and a big ball of yarn. Then we rotated among three main activities: the Scratch programming language for kids, the SeeLogo software for making mathematical art, and the Lego robots. After lunch we wrapped up by drawing labyrinthes in preparation for constructing a full-size labyrinth later this week. Ask your child what a "doogle" is!