Beatmaker

I got this idea from some amazing student teachers!

Using the Beatmaker from splice.com, they had us come up with beats using different instruments that hit at different times. What I thought was really cool was that we had to draw the pattern ourselves before we played it on the Beatmaker. There was a lot of thinking about how to mix and match patterns for different instruments, and what kind of visual patterns would result in what kinds of sounds.

I feel like there's a lot more to do with it, but I haven't investigated yet!

Number Bracelets

I went to Ruth Parker's session at CMC North 2015 and loved it. Of the many things I learned, I am perhaps most excited about Number Bracelets.

Here's how they work:

• Start with any two single digits. Say, 3 and 6. So the start of your bracelet is 6,3
• Add them together. You get 9. Now your bracelet looks like 6,3,9
• Add the last two digits in the bracelet. When you get a double-digit number, you only write down the 1's digit. So now our number bracelet looks like 3,6,9,2 (because 3+9=12, and 2 is the 1's digit)
• Keep going until it starts to repeat: 6,3,9,2,1,3,4,7,1,8,9,7,6,3,9 --> notice that it starts to repeat here. 
• The length of your number bracelet is the number of digits/terms before it starts to repeat. So in this example, the number bracelet starting 6,3 has a length of 12

I have so many questions I want to answer about these!!!

Bongard Problems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bongard_problem
http://www.foundalis.com/res/bps/bpidx.htm

So awesome for understanding what a property is.

It would be interesting to do these with numbers in addition to diagrams.

Thanks, CMC North 2015!

The Painted Cube, Revisited

I'm a big fan of the "Painted Cubes" problem (although to be honest, I don't think I have ever actually used it with kids...). I feel like most math-y people have seen the problem at some point: If you build an n x n x n cube out of unit cubes and paint all the faces, how many of the unit cubes will have one face painted? 2 faces? 3? 0?

This problem from NRICH Maths is a a cool extension. I love the use of the word "some"--it's so interesting how that word both increases access and makes the problem so much harder. I haven't actually done any work on the problem yet, but it just makes me want to play!

Dragon Folding Patterns

http://bowmandickson.com/2012/07/14/math-circle-problem-folding-dragons/#more-1686

Cool pattern finding - not your usual pattern hunt. Plus I like the kinesthetic entry point--kids can think about the pattern in terms of how they're folding it, not just in terms of some of the "usual" pattern finding strategies.

Russian Stacking Dolls

Proportional reasoning meets volume, maybe? There have gotta be some connections between growth factors in 1, 2, and 3-dimensions. 

Also, just some cool pattern finding and different methods for problem solving.

http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=10211&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dydan1+%28dy%2Fdan+posts+%2B+lessons%29

The Fib

Fibonacci Poems

http://gottabook.blogspot.com/2006/04/fib.html

Is this actually mathematically cool? Or just a lame crossover attempt?

Twitter's New Design + Golden Ratio

http://mashable.com/2010/09/29/new-twitter-golden-ratio/

I wonder what else follows this.

Some questions to ask:
-Which design is more pleasing to the eye?
-How do differently-sized computer screens and browser windows effect this layout?