The Challenge: Draw a golden spiral.
Materials Needed: Grid paper? Writing utensils.
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: geometry, proportions/ratios, sequences
#MathArtChallenge Day 25: Tessellations
The Challenge: Great your very own tessellation from a small piece of cardboard.
- Start with a square (Cereal or pop box cardboard works great) Mine was 2”x2”
- Cut a piece from one side and tape it to an adjacent side.
- Repeat for remaining 2 edges.
- Trace!
Materials Needed: Pencil, paper, and cardboard from a cereal box or a pop box or something similarly thin but stiff enough to trace.
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: angles, geometry, polygons, tessellations, vertices/intersections
#MathArtChallenge Day 24: Polygon Midpoints
The Challenge: Draw a polygon. Then mark the midpoint of each side. Connect the midpoints of each side to make a new polygon. Repeat. (Don’t sleep on the quadrilaterals here. They do something rather surprising and beautiful!)
Materials Needed: Paper & pencil or online graphing software like Geogebra or Desmos
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: angles, fractals, functions, geometry, lines, polygons, proportions/ratios, slope symmetry, vertices/intersections.
#MathArtChallenge Day 23: Brunnian Links
The Challenge: Build a set of 3, 4, or even 5 Brunnian links.
Materials Needed: Your call. Joey already did the 3 link one with straws. I used crocheted yarn. Shoelaces?
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: Combinations & Permutations, counting, knot theory, vertices/intersections
#MathArtChallenge Day 22: Extending Day 14…
The Challenge: Dave Richeson came up with a brilliant extension for Day 14
#MathArtChallenge Day 21: Agra Fort Islamic Design
The Challenge : Create this design from the Agra Fort.
Materials Needed: If you have a compass, use this tutorial from Samira Mian. If you do not have a compass, you can use my instructions for making this from a regular grid below that.
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: angles, geometric construction, lines, polygons, symmetry, tesselations, vertices/intersections
#MathArtChallenge Day 20: Origami Icosahedron
The Challenge: Fold 30 identical pieces of paper to put together as an icosahedron.
Materials Needed: 30 square pieces of paper. No problem if it’s not origami paper, you can use regular paper (and you can decorate it if you want!)
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: Geometry, graph theory, origami, polygons, polyhedra, symmetry, vertices/intersections
#MathArtChallenge Day 19: Alternating knots
The Challenge: Draw an alternating knot. Then see if there’s any way to draw a looping line that cannot be turned into an alternating knot.
Materials needed: Pencil & eraser, or whiteboard, or markers?
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: counting, graph theory, knot theory, vertices/intersections.
#MathArtChallenge Day 18: Celtic Knots
The Challenge: Create a Celtic knot, and do some wondering about why you got the number of links that you did. Can you predict how many links you’ll get? (I wrote another blog post on this a while ago, but only go there if you need more examples, because I reveal a lot of the good stuff in it: Knots, Links, & Learning)
Materials Needed: Paper, pencil. If you have grid paper, that might help, and here is some special grid paper you can use courtesy of Justin Aion.
Day18 11×15 Celtic Knot Grid
Day18 MAC 16×22 Celtic Knot Grid
(or you can just rotate grid paper 45 degrees like I do in the video below)
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: arithmetic, combinations & permutations, counting, knot theory, proportions/ratios.
#MathArtChallenge Day 17: PERMUTOHEDRONS
The Challenge: Create your very own order 4 Permutohedron (see video below).
Materials Needed: Paper, pencil, patience, and if you want to go 3D, you sure can. Post-it notes work pretty well when playing with this.
Math concepts you could explore with this challenge: angles, combinations & permutations, geometric construction, geometry, graph theory, polyhedra, sequences, vertices/intersections.
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