Today I woke up at 6:15 AM. What FUN!!!! We started off with Stories with Holes. Everyone was really good at them until one about a manhole. See if you can get it. Why are manholes and their tops round? We also did and will learn about a new Woman Mathematician everyday. Today was Hypatia. She was born in Alexandria, Egypt and helped her father writing about other mathematicians. After, we got to know the other campers through Venn Diagrams. Then we got introduced to linear equation, polynomials, and graphing calculators in the morning.. We explored how changing the variables in the different equations changed the graph that is produced. After Snack Time, (My favorite, just kidding), we did a lot with Fibonacci's Sequence and the Golden Ratio, Spiral, and Rectangle. Do you see the pattern? 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,.... We discovered that Mona Lisa's face, if measured from hairline to chin, and ear to ear; if the lines are extended and points made at the intersection, and then the points connect. Then if you take the length/width, it is the Phi=Golden Ratio.Lunch came next with a special presentation of a Numb3rs episode about Venn Diagrams. We then went to the Computer Lab and made Tessellations of our own. It was awesome!!!!!! But it was very hard and confusing at the same time. After, we got familiar with building up our webpage. You can do so many things, it's crazy cool!!! Later it's Crafts, Dinner, and a Movie. I wonder what we'll do tomorrow......It's another day at camp that again started at 6:15 AM.We again started with Stories with Holes and some of them were really hard!!! We were all stumped!!! The Woman Mathematician of today was Sophie Germain who wrote under the pen name La Blanc (sp?), and sent a paper on the vibrations of sand on drums to LaGrange who is a famous Mathematician. She wanted to write and learn so badly she had to read with candlelight under quilts because her parents took away all means of light. She stole the candlesticks if you were wondering. Talk about strict parenting!!! After we explored Algebra tiles and Quadratic Equations. I love Algebra tiles because it's a great visual to learn algebra. Snack was next with some more of awesome Numb3rs. Pascal's Triangle came next and I new what it was and what it looked like, but I had no idea how many patterns there were throughout the triangle. There was even the Fibonacci Sequence if you went diagonally and added the numbers!!! I never realized just how 1 thing in Math could relate to so many other things. It's like building blocks and they just keep getting bigger. We went into codes.....he he he. I guess I won't write in them. It would take you forever to decode it!! We learned many different codes and some history about codes in WWII. Lunch and then the most awesome thing on the planet. It combines my 2 favorite things. Math and Art: POLYNOMIOGRAPHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Camp is already 1/2 over!! It's gone so fast! As usual, we started out the morning with Stories with Holes and a Mathematician. Today's mathematician was Ada Byron Lovelace. She just happens to be Lord Byron's, the poet's, daughter. She was the first to have understood the computer language. After we studied Fractal Geometry. It's like a tree or broccoli: Each branch or part is similar to the original figure. With that recognition out of the way, we looked into Sierpinski's Triangle, Koch's Curve, and Koch's Snowflake. Then came Mastermind!! It turned out to be harder than I thought!! We had another special speaker today. Her name was Stephanie Jones. She talked to us about Engineering and then we made SLIME!!!!! GOOEY GOOEY GOOEY!!!!! SLIMY SLIMY SLIMY!!!!! We also enjoyed our lovely lunch of Fried Chicken over more Numb3rs episodes. We had homework this time. After lunch came Polydrons which are plastic shapes that can be made into larger, more complex shapes. After that, we worked on our websites and made Tote Bags. IT WAS AWSOME!!!! I love my bag. It's so cute. We have swimming and bowling tonight. Since I'm a terrible bowler, I hope I can do well....by my standards. Lights out at 10:00PM again!!!
Today we woke up again at 6:30 AM. Today was the hardest to get up. I was so tired! We learned about Charlotte Angas Scott. She was born 1858-1931 and got her doctorate degree at the University of London. Throughout her life she published over 30 papers and Founded the American Math Society which is still around today. We had the hardest Story with a hole today. Here, try it: John and David are brothers. John married Jane and David married Diane. John and Diane have the same wedding anniversary and Jane's is 1 month before and David's is 1 month after. How is this possible?After that we explored Probability and Statistics with some Pascal's Triangle. Then we rushed before lunch and mad Origami using Geometry terms only. We had Beth Hanson speak about Probability and it was really interesting, but yet a little confusing at the same time. Tonight we go to the bookstore and then it's Karaoke and packing for the last day. :( It's so sad. I loved this camp and I recommend it to anyone and everyone who loves math and is good at it and wants to learn more. It's not a remedial camp so if math isn't your strongpoint, it might not be the best camp for you. Hope you liked my site and thanks for reading it this week. Please leave comments!!1