Family Math

Recursion is the mind-bending computer-crashing action of putting a thing within itself, within itself, within itself. For example this paragraph is itself recursive. It contains itself as follows: [Recursion is the mind-bending computer-crashing action of putting a thing within itself, within itself, within itself. For example this paragraph is itself recursive. It contains itself as follows: [Recursion is the mind-bending...]]

Next Sunday (2/15) Teresa Zollo will present activities related to recursion in math and computer science. Same time and same place.

For those of you that missed our club today, Joe and Daniel did a mind reading trick in which they were able to guess a number we had arrived at after a lengthy seemingly-random calculation; it turns out he was able to use the idea of "casting out nines" to accomplish the illusion. Larry and Jasper did a show and tell of a poetry-writing program they wrote using Mathematica; they also showed a script for drawing tree diagrams; and they showed the Soda Play physics-driven construction software.

I also wanted to mention that two Saturdays ago (1/31) Family Math hosted the Saturday Academy, a group of 4th to 8th-grade kids that go to musems, workshops, and other math and science-related events on Saturday mornings. (We are captured in pixels here.) There may be possibilites for collaboration!

-Larry

We had a blast this afternoon swaying to the swirling colors of our SeeLogo Spirals of Life. If you would like to experience the SeeLogo mathematical art software yourself, you can download it from our SeeLogo page.

Next Sunday Joe Halpern will treat us to a demonstration of his "mind reading" skills. Joe assures me that this skill is not a paranormal phenomena, but a trick which requires understanding arithmetic mod 9. Intrigued? Come check it out. For maximum enjoyment bring a calculator, pencil, and paper.

Jasper Clarkberg is that type of person who continuously trolls the Internet for tasty tidbits: software that allows you to make games, draw interesting mathematical designs, program, or otherwise help you to get your math on. As time allows Jasper will show us some of his latest catches such as Soda Play, Mathematica and Incredibots. You can see our collection of preferred software on our Other Software page. (Your software recommendation are welcome.)

Note that we *will* have our math club meeting on Sunday February 15. Teresa Zollo will present advanced Scratch concepts.

Thank you and good night.
-Larry

Welcome to the new club members who signed up for this mailing list after picking up our flyer at the Light in Winter Hall of Wonders (see my phantastic photos of the event).

This coming Sunday our plan is to introduce everyone to a pillar of the Family Math experience: SeeLogo. SeeLogo is software for creating mathematical art. SeeLogo was developed by Family Math founder Dani Novak and software developer David Rosenthal. This Sunday Dani will show us how to use SeeLogo to explore the Seven Bridges of Konigsburg problem, draw the Family Math logo, and create the enigmatic yet enlightening Spiral of Life. You can read more about SeeLogo, and download a copy for your PC, on our SeeLogo page.

If you haven't yet been to a Family Math Club meeting, be sure to check out our Schedule and Location page, now with a big colorful campus map. For the record our meetings are most Sundays 2pm to 3:30pm on the third floor of Williams Hall on the Ithaca College campus.

-Larry

Sunday 1/25/08 Math Club Meeting Has Been Canceled

The Math Club meeting scheduled for Sunday 1/25/08 has been canceled due to some of us attending the Light in Winter lecture "Is God a Mathematician" by Mario Livio. We apologize for an inconvenience this may cause.

Hello math club members and potential math club members!

Last fall saw the beginning of the Family Math Club, held Sundays from 2 to 3:30pm on the third floor of Williams Hall at Ithaca College. Kids age 8 to 13 have been coming and enjoying our activities. We have the following activities lined up for Sunday 1/18. See you there!

Scott Pardee, the inventor of the board game Chebache, will demonstrate the game and lead us in some game play. Chebache was designed to fill the gap between Backgammon and Chess, but is essentially a math game with more strategy and movement options than Backgammon. It's a great tool for kids learning math basics as well as early concepts of higher math. You can read more about Chebache at:
http://www.chebache.com

Veteran math club member Joe Halpern will talk about the entertaining act of drawing stars and houses on a piece of paper without lifting your pencil. He will relate it to what's called the "Konigsberg Bridge" problem, which was solved by the mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1736. Pencils will be provided.

To read more about the math club:
http://familymath.org/math-clubs

To sign up for our mailing list:
http://familymath.org/user/register

-Larry Clarkberg
larry@twcny.rr.com


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We'll be discussing the following puzzles as a warm-up exercise:

1. Snail on a Wall
A snail creeps 3 ft. up a wall during the daytime. After all the labor it does throughout the day, it stops to rest a while... but falls asleep!! The next morning it wakes up and discovers that it has slipped down 1 ft while sleeping. If this happens every day, how many days will the snail take to reach the top of a wall 15 ft in height?

2. Farmer's Wife
A farmer’s wife with a carving knife has a cube of cheese 3 inches on a side. She wishes to slice cube into 27 small cubes 1 inch on a side. How can you do this with only six cuts? Why isn't it possible to cut the cheese in less than six cuts even if you rearrange the pieces after each cut?

Hello math club members and potential math club members.

We had a nice mellow time last week working on our programming projects and playing Pente. Daniel solved the weekly puzzle (involving 15 spiders and flies) remarkably swiftly, and then Jasper cracked it algebraically with the help of Joe. Nick worked on his Scratch project. (Scratch is a programming language for kids. See http://scratch.mit.edu.) He added gravity to his dragon to help it avoid the volcano. Dani (a math professor) had an extended discussion about geometry with Eric (a third grader). Teresa read a book about logical thinking. Jasper showed us how he used Scratch to create cellular automata (also known as the Game of Life--see for example http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/).

Next Sunday we will do something similar. Join us! The math club meets Sundays from 2 to 3:30 on the third floor of Williams Hall on the Ithaca College campus. The next meeting is scheduled for Sunday January 11th. We are trying to line up some presenters. If you or someone you know would be interested in presenting a math-related topic to the club, let me know.

To read more about the math club:
http://familymath.org/math-clubs

To sign up for our mailing list:
http://familymath.org/user/register

-Larry Clarkberg
larry@twcny.rr.com

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Puzzles of the Week

1. Three kinds of apples are mixed in a basket. How many apples do you need to take to make sure you have at least two apples of the same kind? All together there are 24 apples in the basket, 8 from each kind.

2. If 3 cats catch 3 rats in 3 minutes, how many cats will catch 100 rats in 100 minutes?

If you have suggestions for puzzles email danovak@gmail.com

 Hi all. I hope your holidays are going well. The next math club meeting is scheduled for Sunday January 4th from 2pm to 3:30pm on the 3rd floor of Williams Hall at Ithaca College. Let's plan to:
• solve a puzzle together
* go over any announcements and brainstorm a bit on the direction of the club
* do some showing and telling (one of my Scratch projects was featured on the Scratch website!)
* play board games
Yes you read that correctly: I think it would be nice to do a math-related activity in which we are facing each other instead of facing computers! And I think board games would help us to get to know each other. We'll have board games for ages on hand, or bring a game that you'd like play.

-Larry

We will hold a club meeting on Sunday 12/14 but we'll skip 12/21 and 12/28. We'll then resume our regularly scheduled meetings on Sunday 1/4/09.

On the agenda for this Sunday:

• Announcements: the Math Club will be running a booth at the Light in Winter Hall of Wonders! We will show people how to make stuff with Scratch. Join us at the booth from 12noon to 4pm in the Statler Hall atrium at Cornell. See:
  http://lightinwinter.com/festival-events/?page=liw/eventsCtrl&action=det...
  
• Show and tell. Bring in anything even remotely related to math or programming. I have something about triangles to show everyone, which I've written about at http://clarkberg.org/?p=330.
  
• Puzzle. Does anyone have a good puzzle? I don't have one yet.
  
• Lesson: We will learn more advanced Scratch techniques as we make way cool virtual holiday "cards" with Scratch. I will meet one-on-one with everyone to give you an individually-tailored Scratch challenge.
  
• Snack. Everyone is welcome to bring snack but please be aware that some of us in the group have peanut allergies. 

See you there!

-Larry

Hi all.

The subject line of this email says it all but in case you didn't read it: the next math club meeting will be at 2pm December 7th on the 3rd floor Williams Hall at IC.

On the agenda:

• Announcements.
  
• Show and tell. Bring in anything even remotely related to math or programming. For example Jasper found an online game like Phun only funner that he will show us.
• Puzzle. I have a puzzle to show you that I've cleverly disguised as a short skit.
• Lesson: I will introduce everyone to Scratch, the ultimate programming language for kids. 
• Snack. Everyone is welcome to bring snack but please be aware that some of us in the group have peanut allergies. 

See you there!

-Larry

Hi all.

Thanks to those of you who showed up to our first math club meeting. Wow! I put a brief description online at
http://familymath.org

Things went so well that we decided to hold a second meeting this Sunday 11/23 from 2pm to 3:30pm. If all goes well we'll meet regularly on Sundays (but we'll skip Sunday 11/30 because of the holidays). Again, we'll be on the third floor of Williams Hall at Ithaca College. Williams Hall is labeled number seven on this map:
http://www.ithaca.edu/map/

A few people asked if they could bring a friend. We've arranged to have a second computer lab available in case we do fill up the first lab, so bring your friends!

What's on the agenda for Sunday? Something like this:
--do puzzles and games while people arrive
--announcements
--show and tell (bring any sort of puzzle, computer project, or math problem you want to share)
--Teresa will lead a lesson in HTML, the language of the web; Larry will provide everyone with a free web page to play with
--free time to work on your projects; sign-up for tutoring if you want help from an expert
--open internet time: please limit your web-surfing and game-playing to the last fifteen minutes of our club meeting

Note that from this point on I'll only be sending Family Math related emails to people who have registered on the Family Math website, so if you want to keep informed about the math club please go to http://familymath.org and register.

-Larry