SIAM event shows the fun side of Mathematics

TXST DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS

FUN-CTIONS

In one corner, children lined up for the Bobcat Racing Club’s race car simulator. A racing chair sat on the ground with petals scooched as far forward as possible. Little legs reached as far as they could to touch the pedals. A screen was overhead showing a track as players attempted to set new lap time records.

On the other side of the room, different colored cups were lined up in six squares from left to right. A cup could jump from side to side the amount of numbers in the stack of the cup. As the cups stacked, they had to jump more squares. Players had to get all the cups stacked and then try and do so in a way that would end the game on a each of the six squares. These were two of the dozen or so stations set up at the Julia Robinson Math Festival at the San Marcos Public Library this weekend hosted by the Texas State University chapter of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in collaboration with the library and the university’s Department of Mathematics.

“We are introducing the community to fun math games,” Michala Gradner, co-director of the Julia Robinson Math Festival, said. “The Julia Robinson Math Festival is a nonprofit organization that introduces or allows people to see math in fun and applicable ways through fun math games.”

Gradner said that the event was “going great.”

“There are a lot of people that look like they are having fun,” Gradner said. “I see a lot of happiness, a lot of joy … and a lot of people that are engaging with the games in a way I didn’t really expect. For kids to engage in stuff that has math behind it is really nice.”

For more information on the event, visit jrmf. org/events/texas-state.