Math Camp Wrap up!

Hi all!  I will try to get pictures into a folder soon. Otherwise I'll email each person a few of their kids' photos, especially the bridges.

On Friday we had "Engineering" day.  After solving a few puzzles about bridges and crossing rivers, we built bridges using 1 lb spaghetti, 10 glue sticks, and a roadbed.  Some bridges were beautiful and mathematical, some were along the lines of, "Put all the spaghetti on the roadbed and use all the glue."  Unfortunately, the less elegant ones were stronger, but I hope everyone enjoyed the process. 

Here is a video describing the forces a bridge faces, and demonstrating bridge destruction:
https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/mit-k12/mit-k12-physics/v/bridge-design-and-destruction-part-1

We also built a geodesic dome.   Here is a link to the design we used: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/educator/act_geodesic_ho.html
The site has lots of examples of geodesic domes.

The previous day was probability.  We talked about Pascal's triangle and its link to combinatorics.
Here is a website with lots of activities:
http://www.korpisworld.com/Mathematics/diversions/exploring_pascal.htm 

We also talked about experimental vs. theoretical probability using Skittles, which was very popular.

Thanks for sending your kids!  I enjoyed having them, even though it was chaotic at times.  I hope to have the opportunity to do math with them again!

Math Camp Day 3!

So for day 3 of math camp we made bubbles and parabolic solar ovens.

The bubbles were a HUGE success.  I got the projects from here:
https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/backyard-bubbles/ 

We made bubbles within bubbles, towers of bubbles, huge bubbles, square bubbles, and played bubble bop (bouncing bubbles from one person to another).

Then we made parabolic solar ovens.  The project was from here:https://www.education.com/science-fair/article/solar-hot-dog-cooker/

I'm not sure I'd actually use this to cook hot dogs. I wanted to cook marshmallows, which didn't work because marshmallows don't heat up in the sun (they reflect the light...) but I wasn't impressed. I am giving bonus points for anyone who actually succeeds at this.

It was interesting, the project was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, and some of the things I thought were clear in the directions were definitely NOT clear. But live and learn!

Two interesting websites on paraboloids:
https://gizmodo.com/heres-why-you-shouldnt-leave-a-giant-parabolic-mirror-i-1827858823
Paraboloids and buildings which set things on fire.

Tomorrow should be calmer and less crafty. The only problem might be the skittles for doing combinatorics and probability...

Mathmom's Math Camp: Day 2

We had day 2 of math camp today: logic.  We did not do truth tables (much to the dismay of one of the kids) but we played with cryptarithms, where each letter represents a number.  For example. if W+O=OF, then you know that O=1, which means that W=9 and F=0.

We then played Giotto, where one team chooses a word and the other team guesses, being given hints about how many letters are in both words.  The best part was when the students realized that getting a score of zero was better than getting a score of 1 or 2.  The teams of older kids and younger kids competed fiercely and came out...about equal.  Amazing.

We talked a little about invariants at the end of the time.  The easiest puzzle asks whether if you have 5 cups up and one down, can you turn all the cups up if you turn them two at a time.  What stays the same when you turn over the cups?

I got the puzzles from the book "Camp Logic".

Tomorrow: Parabolic ovens (which may or may not actually heat anything up...but the theory is good, and the parabolas are for real...) and bubbles.

Unfortunately, I totally neglected to take any pictures.  I will try to do better tomorrow.