Written on November 18, 2007

Well, October was our busy math month!

Check out the amazing math art we saw at the Northwest Math Conference in Bellevue, Washington.

Here's a great site on origami and math!

Did you know that NASA is using reverse origami in the design of satellites and used it for the Mars Rover?

You can find origami or folding principles in the design of things we use daily such as envelopes, cartons, packaging, and maps. Origami is now even being used by scientists to help solve problems.

We had a great time performing Crazy 4 Math at Science World.

Math Mania from UBC's Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences shared many mathematical games and puzzles.

Probability with the famous Goat Door Problem (also known on Monty's Hall's Let's Make a Deal) was explored. Here's an online version of the Three Door Game.

This penny game taught us about rules, binomial distribution, Pascal's Triangle and probability. Children were asked the question, "why is it so hard to get to the outside?"

The rules were:

1. Roll the dice
2. If you get a 1, 2, or 3: go left
3. If you get a 4, 5, or 6: go right
4. Do this seven times
5. Where does you penny go?

What happens if you change the rules?

UBC's PIM even made a giant Tower of Hanoi to play with. This puzzle was invented by the French mathematician Edouard Lucas in 1883. The objective is to move the tower to one of the other pegs by moving one disk at a time and without putting a larger one onto a smaller. You can make your own at home or play with ours. Try solving the problem with just two rings first.

Our Crazy 4 Math Club checked out the Port Moody Geological Rock Show. Check out this cool 8x8 array chess board made of rocks!

We even found some math on Halloween!

How many ways did your kids sort their candy? By type, favourite, size, colour, manufacturer, country of origin?

Ah... math is everywhere!