For Fall 2019 we will be running a series of events at Westfield Intermediate School in Westfield Massachusetts. Events will run 2:35 - 4:00 after school.
We will also have a series of events at Westfield Middle School in Westfield Massachusetts. Events at this school will run 2:30 - 3:30 after school.
See our calendar for the exact dates.
Past Events
Participants created Islamic geometric patterns and studied the underlying mathematics. We saw connections to ruler and compass constructions, as well as tessellations.
Participants played the game Zendo and used problem solving strategies and critical thinking skills in order to deduce the secret rule. We then explored Mathematical Zendo, a game that has been created with the purpose of adapting Zendo to a variety of mathematical concepts.
For this event we were visited by Dr. Axel Brandt from Northern Kentucky University. Participants explored the quickest way to check all possibilities for a forgotten 4-digit garage door code. Based on our explorations, we made conjectures about longer garage door codes and discussed ongoing mathematical research on this question.
For this event we were introduced to the graceful tree conjecture! We drew trees that looked like various animals and explored whether or not we could label the vertices so that all of the differences were distinct. What do you think? Are all trees graceful?
We visited our friends at the Salisbury Math Circle in Salisbury CT to play Zendo with them. Another impressive performance from an impressive group! Thanks for having us.
Today we expanded on Zendo and explored the world of Numbers Zendo. We saw rules about prime numbers, squares, and even ordered pairs! An impressive showing from the students.
Chomp! We were introduced to the world of graph theory and played the game Chomp! on graphs. Trees, Stars, and Forests, so many possibilities!
One pile, two pile, three piles! We explored the mathematics behind Nim and strategies for us to take the last stone and win the game.
For these events we explored mathematical origami, using one cut for various mathematical shapes, and experiencing butterfly bombs. How exciting!
Our new students had never seen Zendo so we revisited the game to exciting results. Several students were able to become the Zendo master and lead us in our activities.
During these events we explored the wonderful world of Islamic Geometry. Students determined how to draw different geometric shapes and create their own tiles! What can you create?
Our intern for the semester, Corey Pooler, took over for these two weeks and led an exploration around the Euler characteristic. Planes, spheres, and tori ... oh my!
Our activities this week tested our deductive reasoning skills through the game of Zendo. Can you deduce the hidden rule and become the Zendo master!?
We celebrated pi day in style by exploring the game Prime Climb and thinking about prime factorizations. Happy pi day!
For Valentines day we had special valentine themed activities. We worked through Mobius hearts, and moved on to work with modular arithmetic seeing how we could draw a cardioid heart on a clock!
We had a special guest this week when Dr. Daniel Schultheis came to visit us from Smith College. He brought us an interesting picture hanging activity where we actually want pictures to fall off the wall!
This week we ventured into the world of origami and tried to determine which shapes we could cut out of paper with one straight cut! Can you cut out the scalene triangle?
This week for our math circle we participated in Global Math Week! We had fun exploding dots and learning about different based number systems. If you are interested you can see more exploding dots here.
Math Circles have kicked off for the 2017 school year and we began by exploring the games Chomp! and Taxman. Can you find a strategy to beat these games?!
Our final event of the school year had us outside shooting off stomp rockets! We had a lot of great designs and lost some rockets on the roof of the school. Have a great Summer!
This month we investigated the game Spot It! and tried to create our own Spot It! games. Can you create a Spot it game with 13 symbols on every card?
In the month of April we explored the area of combinatorics through counting how many fist bumps we could have in a group of people. We found a formula and related it to adding up consecutive integers!
This event was held at North Middle School and we explored logic through classic knights and knaves problems. Can you tell who is a knight and who is a knave?
Our first official math circle event was held at North Middle School and we worked on cryptography discovering several new ways to encode secret messages.
Our second kickoff event was also held at Westfield State University and we worked on dissecting Mobius bands and some game theory.
Our first kickoff event! We met at Westfield State University in the new science building and worked on some graph theory and straight cut origami.