Several weeks ago Quanta magazine published an article about incredible new work being done by Laura DeMarco and Kathryn Lindsey:
3-D Fractals Offer Clues to Complex Systems
Along with the article was a fun little paper folding contest that was won by Yoshiaki Araki. Here’s the starting fractal made using Mathematica:
I was so excited to see Araki’s tweet and printed the shape that night!
The first thing I did was have the kids play with it and describe what they saw:
As a follow up to that initial exploration, I had each of the boys try the folding project from Quanta Magazine’s contest. It is a pretty challenging project for kids, but here’s how it came out. My older son first:
Next my younger son:
I’m really interested in learning more about these folded fractals. I would especially love to understand the basics of how the shapes fold up. Can’t wait to play with the ideas her more.