Yesterday we played around with some introductory ideas in Stephen Wolfram’s Physics Project. Today we moved on to looking at the 3d examples in the project. We were entirely on the computer today looking at shapes, so this project was more about experiencing the ideas rather than diving into the details. Still the kids had a great time.
Here’s how the introduction to the 3d shapes went:
Now I had the boys each try to produce one of the 3d shapes using a rule they made up. This part of the project turned out to be a bit harder because of our lack of familiarity with how the underlying details work. Still, though, they produced some neat shapes and talked about them here:
Despite the difficulties today, I’m excited to play with this project a bit more. The math ideas here are something that I think the kids aren’t going to see anywhere else, and I love the lessons about building complex shapes from simple rules.
Mike's Math Page 