Binder clips are one of the office supplies that aren't always appreciated for their mathematical possibilities. Where many people see little architectural potential, Zach Abel has been pushing forward the...
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Monday December 19th, 2011 12:00 PM
Categories: Craft, Science | 4 Comments
Napier's bones are a set of labeled sticks which John Napier invented in the 1600s for solving multiplication problems. Nowadays, you may be more likely to use a calculator, but...
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Monday December 12th, 2011 12:00 PM
Categories: Craft, Science | No Comments
Our favorite "mathemusician" Vi Hart has a wonderful new video out today exploring my favorite polygon, the triangle. I loved the comment on her Facebook posting of the video: "This...
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Thursday December 8th, 2011 3:09 PM
Categories: Art & Design, Science | No Comments
Last week's Math Monday column looked at a tricky construction of four equilateral triangles. Let's revisit it, but instead of using paper, we'll use square sticks. These twelve identical wood...
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Monday December 5th, 2011 12:00 PM
Categories: 3D Printing, Woodworking | No Comments
What could sound easier than to make a regular construction from four paper equilateral triangles? One possible construction is the regular tetrahedron, which is pretty easy. Here is a different...
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Monday November 28th, 2011 12:00 PM
Categories: Science | 5 Comments
You may know how to make a ship in a bottle, but how would you make this octahedron in a balloon? The twelve edges of the octahedron are made of...
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Monday November 21st, 2011 12:00 PM
Categories: Craft, Science | No Comments
Inexpensive light sticks can be held together with rubber bands to make glowing geometric structures. Here's a construction based on the truncated dodecahedron, with a tetrahedron over each triangle. Assembling...
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Monday November 14th, 2011 12:16 PM
Categories: Craft, Hackerspaces, Science | No Comments
A string hyperboloid can be made by running strings between two circles and rotating one relative to the other. Here's one large enough to stand inside of---it is fourteen feet...
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Monday November 7th, 2011 12:00 PM
Categories: Craft, Science | 3 Comments
Here is a seven-piece arch in the shape of a catenary, similar to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. If you have access to a 3D printer, you can make...
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Monday October 31st, 2011 12:00 PM
Categories: 3D Printing, Science | No Comments
Here is a bouncy structure made of dowels and rubber bands in which no sticks directly touch each other. The compression members are not connected, yet the entire structure supports...
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Monday October 24th, 2011 12:00 PM
Categories: Craft | 3 Comments
A pentomino is like a domino, but it has five connected squares instead of two. There are twelve ways to connect squares edge-to-edge in the plane, not counting rotations and...
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Monday October 17th, 2011 12:00 PM
Categories: Science, Woodworking | No Comments
There are many ways to calculate an approximation to pi, but rarely is math as delicious as in this idea from Davidson College professor Tim Chartier. Make a quarter circle...
Posted by Gareth Branwyn | Monday October 10th, 2011 12:00 PM
Categories: Science | No Comments
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