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Here’s the result of a twenty-minute building frenzy:
What is it? A big blue castle? A very wobbly ocean? A sombrero? No! It’s a
cosine. Really and truly.
Here’s how I built it in twenty minutes:
1) I didn’t build it.
2) I had students build it.
3) And I didn’t even have my students build it.
4) I had someone else’s students build it. So I guess it isn’t a MOC. It’s
an OOC (our own creation).
Perhaps I should elaborate. Last semester, our Calculus III students learned
double integration the old-fashioned way. They each built slices out of Lego
bricks using instructions I whipped up; when they lined up their slices (with
the help of letter tiles), they ended up with the surface defined by
z=7+6cos(x^2+y^2). Isn’t that great?
After building a coarse approximation using 2x2s, my colleague Julian used it to
show how double integration works. I love this photo!
Then, like all good calculus lessons, we tried a smaller delta x by adding 1x1s
to the models. You see the result in the top photo. The class ended up with a
beautiful model they had built themselves--and knew how to build again (should
they ever need to teach double integration).
I knew I’d reached them when later that night one student hollered at me from
across the grocery store. Yeah! Math celebrity!
The story doesn’t end there. I suppose we could have tried an even smaller
delta x with Modulex, but no: I took the show on the road and made the model
bigger!
Of course, I didn’t build any of this one, either. It was the work of other
mathematicians, students, and even parents. But that’s a story for another day.
Hope everyone’s enjoying summer vacation!
-Teddy
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: Look what you can build in twenty minutes!
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| (...) Awesome Ted! (Hey, sorry I've been so aloof, even to you my closest AFOL neighbor. I haven't even thanked you yet for the bloody Christmas card!) :) But on topic, I must admit, I personally would use those in a Pirate display. For sure! ;) (...) (19 years ago, 17-Jul-05, to lugnet.edu, FTX)
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