Unit Origami: Star-Building on Deltahedra

This workshop provides instructions for folding the star-building unit – a modification of the Sonobe module for unit origami. Geometric questions naturally arise during this process, ranging in difficulty from middle school to graduate levels. Participants will learn to fold and assemble star-building units, then explore the structure of the eight strictly convex deltahedra

Logarithmic Spirals and Projective Geometry in M.C. Escher\u27s Path of Life III

M.C. Escher\u27s use of dilation symmetry in Path of Life III gives rise to a pattern of logarithmic spirals and an oddly ambiguous sense of depth

Emergent Technology Smorgasbord

New technologies for communication and collaboration are emerging, and some established technologies are just starting to make their way into the higher education consciousness. Join us on a whirlwind tour through all of the possibilities imaginable for teaching and learning as we look at Google Wave, mobile learning, wordle, Google Docs, embedded RSS news in your LMS, YouTube for student video projects, Twitter, netbooks, virtual world gaming, and more. Related Links: 2010 Horizon Report Preview 2009 Horizon Report Project Natal video Embedding Audio, Video and News in Blackboar

A Center for Academic Achievement: How Innovative Collaborations Between Faculty and Learning Center Administrators Built Model, Credit-Bearing, First-Year Courses with Embedded Support for At-Risk Students

Establishing a centralized learning assistance program to systematically address the academic challenges of all students was the first priority of the Academic Achievement Center (AAC) at Bridgewater State College when it was formed in 2001. This new, open, bright, comfortable, and inviting place has truly become the heart of the campus, for it is here that abundant human and material resources are available to support all students. In this learning environment, students can access services in advising, testing, disabilities resources, study, research, writing, communication, mathematics, adaptive technology, tutoring, and English as a second language. Primary responsibility for learning assistance lives with faculty directors who plan how to place meaningful assistance in the path of all students. This article describes the challenges and rewards in establishing and sustaining campus commitment to centralized learning assistance programs as well as some of the exciting opportunities for collaborative innovation on learning assistance that have resulted from such a commitment at Bridgewater State College. An additional discussion focuses on the administrative strategies that support this successful model, and the profound professional opportunities presented to faculty, graduate students, undergraduate student staff, and professional staff through this model. Besides the various services provided at the AAC, systemic delivery of learning assistance is meshed through academic courses for at-risk, first-year students. A description and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data point out the observed trends of student persistence and academic standing for each cohort that has benefited from this comprehensive model

How to Lose at Tetris

This paper addresses the question: "can you `win' the game Tetris?" Designed by Soviet mathematician Alexey Pazhitnov in the late eighties and imported to the United States by Spectrum Holobyte, Tetris won a record number of software awards in 1989 [4]. Versions of Tetris are sold for most personal computers. There are Tetris arcade games, Tetris Nintendo cartridges, and hand-held Tetris games; Tetris has been played on machines ranging from mainframes to calculators. The game's success has prompted the invention of several similar games, including Hextris, Welltris, and Wordtris. Although mathematicians have spent many hours "studying" Tetris, surprisingly little is known about the mathematical properties of the game. Much research has been done on the subject of covering rectangles with sets of polyominoes [2,3,5,6]; Tetris adds a new twist to this familiar problem. The game takes place on a grid or "board" ten units wide and twenty units tall. When the game starts, the board is empty. Then tetrominoes, groups of four connected "cells", each cell covering exactly one grid square, appear at the top of the board and fall row by row toward the bottom of the board (see Figure 1). When a tetromino reaches the bottom or a point where it can fall no further without two or more cells overlapping, it remains in that spot and another tetromino (randomly selected from the set of seven possible tetrominoes) appears at the top of the board. The player uses rotations and horizontal translations to orient the tetrominoes as they fall, attempting to cover rows of the board with cells. When a row is covered, the cells on that row are removed from the board and the cells of the rows above drop down to fill the Figure 1: The Tetrominoes Figure 2: Z-Tetrominoes gap. Figure 1 shows how ..

The OpenCourseWare Movement: Is it Right for You?

We\u27ve seen the impact of the World Wide Web on our classroom; how far will it go and where might it end? When MIT asked this question, their answer was OpenCourseWare. Discover what OpenCourseWare is (and isn\u27t), learn where to find free educational materials produced by colleges and universities around the world, and imagine the possibilities of contributing your own work to this effort! Related links: MIT OpenCourseWare Open Courseware Consortium Creative Common

Origami Break

Learn to fold an origami star-building unit - the key component in cubes, stars, and other fantastic shapes. This relaxing, hands-on activity promotes exploration of symmetry, color and geometry