Sharing “developable surfaces” with kids thanks to a brilliant lecture from Heather Macbeth

[This is a redo of a blog post from January 2018 that somehow ended up 1/2 deleted. Not sure what I did to that old post, but I didn’t want to lose the ideas.]

In January 2018 I attended a terrific public lecture given by Heather Macbeth at MIT. The general topic was differential geometry, and the specific topic she discussed was “developable surfaces.”

Here’s an example from the talk:

Earlier today I attended an absolutely fantastic public lecture given by Heather Macbeth of MIT. The topic was "developable surfaces" -> surfaces that can be made from a sheet of paper. Can't wait to share this topic with kids: https://t.co/SjSbGfWxrq #math #mathchat

— Mike Lawler (@mikeandallie) January 8, 2018

I also printed a few examples and shared them with the boys the next day:

Here’s what my older son had to say about the shapes:

Here’s what my younger son thought:

These are really neat surfaces to explore. If you look at some of the mathematical ideas for “Developable surfaces” you’ll find that some of the surfaces are actually pretty easy to code, print, and share with kids!