PASSIONATELY CURIOUS - Sebastian Martin, PhD

Another exhibit idea, another exploration of “Math in Nature”. This tree is constructed of one part . The tree is made in an iterative manner, the recipe is
1. scale down the part
2. add the scaled down parts to every open end.
3. do this over and over again.

The climbing structure I have in mind for our “Geometry Playground” exhibition would have more branches, just a simple drawing for a start. I added a lot of detail to one branch (on the table). It’s fascinating to come closer and closer and discover more and more tiny details (see last picture).

This tree has 10 iterations, each one is a different color. Each iteration has 3 times more parts than the one before: 1 trunk, 3 big branches, 3*3=9 smaller ones, then 3*3*3=27 smaller ones, etc (I don’t show all the small twigs in the drawing).

I imagine visitors climbing but also building (at the table). They add twigs or new iterations, and go down to a scale where they need a magnifying glass to build. In the drawing the twigs are 12 times smaller than the trunk.

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“This is the third year that Maker Faire has packed the San Mateo Fairgrounds with the best and brightest of the burgeoning DIY community–mobile barcalougers, dueling Tesla coils, huge Burning Man art pieces, felt masterpieces, and on and on–…”

The Exploratorium was strong this year with an ever-changing booth showing dozens of our projects. Check out Luigi’s photo stream on Flickr including two of my exhibits, “Sand Flowers”, and “Video Feedback Experiment” (click on the photo below).

Have a look at the exhibit I am currently working on. I started to experiment with “video feedback” and soon got fascinated. This video shows an example of the intricate patterns that emerge when you point a camera at it’s own picture. There is really no processing or fancy electronics involved, just feeding the picture back into the camera and watching how it gets replicated over and over again.

Another exhibit I am prototyping for Geometry Playground. Flowing sand in this exhibit is just a tool to simulate “Voronoi Cell growth”. Believe it or not, hundreds of patterns we find in nature can be constructed using this simple geometric rule. The video shows voronoi cells growing into a honeycomb pattern…

The explOratorium’s latest exhibit development project. I am one of the lucky developers who gets to invent new hands-on and body-in exhibits about geometry!
I am keen to hear about anything geometry related that fascinates you! Games, sculptures, architecture, classroom activities, online content, puzzles, books… please email to sebastianm at exploratorium edu.