7-21-2016

Day 4

Hello for the last time. It has been a wonderful week. I got to try and experience new things. We started out today with another biography on a female mathematician. Today's was about Miriyam Mirzakhani. She was born in Tehran Iran in May 1977. She was also the first female recipient of the Fields Medal in 2014. She does research in geometry and is now still alive and she is married and has a young daughter named Anahita. A nice change of pace compared to the other female mathematicians we have learned about all week who all are dead. After that we did some more work with Pascal's triangle which I talked to you about in my other blog posts. We also did some work with the Monty Hall problem which is basically about probability. Which we also did some work with. Today's estimation was a weight estimation and it was of keys. I was way off, but I had fun doing it and that's all that counts. We also calculated how many gifts are given in the twelve days of Christmas. After that we had a guest speaker Dr. Jessica Lin come in and talk to us about game theory using skittles! It was tasty and a fun learning experience. Well I can't wait to see my family, but I am really sad because I have to leave my friends steak and potato. So I will say goodbye for the last time.
Aufwiedersehen,
~Meaghan (Tofu)

7-20-2016   

Day 3

Hello people! Once again I am writing to you from math camp. Today was rather interesting because it was pouring rain yesterday and it seemed like it was going to rain all day today. The counselors told us to dress for rain. I did, sadly, dress for rain in my rain boots, jeans, my raincoat and my umbrella. Oh yeah, I was ready, but mother nature was not. All I got to justify my rain gear was a slight drizzle and then nothing. Now it is 3:23 p.m. and 79 degrees out. Although my rain has not come my day has still been great. We started out with a biography on Maria Agnesi. She was an Italian prodigy in math science and philosophy. She was very well educated and learned five languages. Her mother died when she was young and young Maria was left to take care of her twenty-one other siblings. To teach her brothers math she wrote a math book. She was even a public speaker, with the help of her father who encouraged her greatly. We also learned about Fibonacci. Though the Fibonacci numbers were named after him his real name was Leonardo of Pisa. He spent his childhood in North Africa and was born in the 1200's. Later after learning about Fibonacci we played the game Mastermind. Mastermind is a game that utilizes logic and code breaking skills. It was a lot of fun. After we had Dr. Catherine Miller Hunt come in to talk to us about the Zika virus. Hopefully you will be happy to know that it rarely causes death. It is only really harmful to pregnant women and their baby, because it can cause birth defects. I had an amazing day and I can't believe that tomorrow is my last full day. Well I am going to say goodbye and talk to you tomorrow. 

~Meaghan

Trivia site we used today

7-19-2016

Day 2

Hello peoples! By now you hopefully have already read my first post and saw what I did on my first day. Today started out with another short biography about a female mathematician. Her name was Ada Byron Lovelace. She was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron, however she never met him. At age thirteen she designed a flying machine and sadly throughout her short life she suffered illness. She was born in 1815 and died in 1852 from cancer. After the biography we learned how to use math in magic. I can now guess you birthday using mathematical magic. (Which was perfect because we just watched Now You See Me yesterday) We learned about the fundamental counting principle ( If one task can be done in m ways and another in n ways then the two tasks can be done in m times n ways). We also talked about polygons and how they are a closed and two denominational shape. Then we did some work with polyhedrons and platonic solids. I even made a dodecahedron! Later we had another biography on Blaise Pascal. He was French and only lived for thirty-nine years. He invented a calculating machine. After hearing about the man that Pascal's Triangle was named after we had an amazing time experimenting and learning about it. It is something that shortens a lot of work. Finally after all of this was done we had a guest speaker come in who is a civil engineer and she works with sewage and water drainage. I am having an amazing time learning and trying new things in the ways of math and I can wait to pursue it further for the rest of this week and hopefully the rest of my life. I will see you tomorrow and right now I have to go eat! Yay food! 

Aufwiedersehen, 

~Meaghan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMriWTvPXHI Pascal's Triangle

7-18-2016

Day 1

Hello world! In case you didn't see when you clicked on my name, my name is Meaghan. As of right now I am writing to you at 2:40 p.m. My day started out like any other day of my life, I woke up got ready and then made breakfast for me and some of the other campers. After that it all changed and my routine was broken. All of us (the campers) jumped into cars and were driven to the college campus of Western. As we walked through the doors our future instructors were there to greet us. We started out our day with a very empowering biography about Hypatia who was one of the first notable female mathematicians recognized. She was the daughter of Theon. She even drove her own chariot. We also talked about polynomials and what they are and what they mean. After solving some easy and some hard logic puzzles we talked about linear equations, exponents and played the game set. Throughout this first day I heard all about a frog that jumped into the second cabin (lucky I was in the first) no one screamed, however some people seemed a little rattled about this "frog invasion". I would be too if a frog jumped in my suitcase and someone had to pick him up and throw him out. After hearing those stories my night seemed to get a lot better. After our game of set we all walked across the street to another building where Dr.Andreev talked to us about an app he made with some other people who work at the college. The app is called poly z vision and it is a lot of fun to use. It's looks like a beautiful piece of art which is really cool because I am not an artist (Well, unless doodles count). I can't wait until after we take our group picture eat dinner and have movie night and watch Now You See Me! I'm having a great time!

See you tomorrow 

Meaghan

SET

I did this one with kennedi B

 I did this one by myself!!!

http://www.setgame.com/set/puzzle