Balloon Geometry

Yesterday my friend Nagle and I ran an activity at Bring Your Grandmother To Math at the MIT Museum (a part of the Cambridge Science Festival). A few days earlier, we’d spent an afternoon reading through Vi Hart’s blog for inspiration. We looked at the Mobius strip music box, Penny sierpinski triangles, and followed a link to a tricycle with square wheels. We were briefly entranced by various foods in various shapes before finally deciding on a less messy version: balloon geometry.

(Seriously, follow those links to Vi Hart’s site. You’re missing out otherwise.)

Anyway, have some pictures!

The only three shapes we managed: pyramid, cube and octahedron.

The pyramid was the most popular, probably because it made a fabulous hat.

My pyramid hat allowed me to demonstrate with authority!