MATRIX Conference 2016

MATRIX 2016 (Mathematics Awareness, Training, Resource, & Information Exchange) was a conference for professionals of math outreach held in Leeds (UK) on September 1-3, 2016. The conference was organized by MathsWorldUK, MoMath, and the School of Mathematics, University of Leeds.

Talks

New developments at MoMath - Cindy Lawrence

Lawrence presented brief account of the latest activities at MoMath, including Random Walk on Wall Street, Solstice Stars, dodecahedral cell sculptures, screenings of the film Navajo Math Circles, constructions of Leonardo Domes, the 120-faces dice, and others. A new forthcomming exhibit was announced, Twisted Thruway, consisting on a small scale car driving attached to a Möbius band sculpture with an on-board camera showing the driver's point of view.

Creative and Playful Maths - Chris Budd

Budd advocated for showing to the public that math is creative, demonstrating that it can be both fun and useful. He exposed how Math masterclasses are done at Royal Institution, with examples as the hexasticks (also known as 72 pencils), shapes, bubbles, geomerty, quilting show, art, and performed a couple of magic tricks.

Building a MENACE machine - Matthew Scroggs

[mscroggs.co.uk/menace MENACE] (Machine Educable Noughts And Crosses Engine) is a machine learning demonstration to play Noughts and Crosses (aka TicTacToe) using matchboxes and colour beads. The talk also explored analogies with connect 4, chess and go, and explained the basics of Google's alpha go. Besides, the Chalkdust magazine was presented to the public.

The Use of GeoGebra to enhance hands-on exhibits - Michael Borcherds

Some GeoGebra applications were demonstrated, such as Geometric Mechanisms of Ellipse linkage (van Schooten), Morphing polyhedra, Girl in a mirror, Shapes of constant width, and 4DFrame. Slides and applets of the presentation are available.

Technology and Creativity - Philipp Legner

Discussion of ways to teach and learn Maths focused on problem solving and reasoning, adapting to the students interests. As a tool to help achieve this proposal, Legner developed Mathigon, a website for online learning topics on mathematics (arithmetic, algebra, graphs & networks...). Mathigon uses dynamic and interactive text, that requires the participation of the visitor to advance the lectures. Finally, a new project "PolyGOn" was announced, as a collaboration with MoMath.

An Exhibition in a Suitcase - Guido Ramellini et al

Project for developing an inexpensive portable pop-up exhibition in mathematics that can be used in a triple way: as exhibition, in classroom and in a workshop. As an example, different ways to use the chinese Tangram were proposed, depending on the setup and context. Integration of physical and virtual simulations and feedbacks from classroom and exhibition were discussed. The on-going projects features already more than 40 exhibits in a portable suitcase.

The Further Mathematics Support Programme - Tom Button & Phil Chaffe

The FMSP is a UK program for enriching the math education. It supports schools and colleges, runs professional development for theachers, offers tutoring for students, and provides enrichment materials for the classroom.

Adventures in Maths Public Engagement - Katie Steckles

An account of some big events of massive participation, including the Domino Computer (2012), The MegaMenger (2014) and the ManchesterMegaPixel (2016). Also more events and information on The Aperiodical blog.

The Power of Mathematical Experiments - Albrecht Beutelspacher

Beutelspacher presented experiences at the Mathematikum, around the idea of mathematical experiment, if they are at all mathematics, or at all experiments.

University Mathematics Outreach programmes - Joe Watkins

Watkins has been involved in math outreach from the University. He discussed similarities and differences with math outreach from different sources and school levels. He presented how to tackle with some UK metrics used to measure performance, the Teaching Excellent Framework (TEF) and the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Viruses, origami, and computer models - Hamish Todd

Viruses are biological structures that expose a number of polyhedral symmetries and mathematical properties that also appear in a completely unconnected field, origami. Todd presented some applets developed to show these connections.

Royal Institution Masterclasses - Samantha Durbin

The Royal Institution is a UK organization with the mission of "harness science for the maximum benefit of society". To promote scientific thinking amongst students, they organize the Ri Masterclasses, a series of lectures in mathematics, engineering, and Computer Sciences given by enthusiastic speakers, and reaching so far over 7000 students out of school time, with their participation nominated by their teachers. The Royal Institute also produces videos, such as The history of zero, presented at the end of the talk.

Moving Maths - Ben Sparks

An exposure of emotions in front of maths. Sparks showed a GeoGebra applet to discover and be surprised by the Julia and Mandelbrot sets. The talk finished with Golden ratio spirals, sunflowers, and a song performed live accompanied with guitar.

Hilbert, an open source framework for interactive exhibits in maths museums - Andreas Matt

Matt presented the latest project of IMAGINARY for math museums. Hilbert is a framework composed of operating system and network infrastructure to manage large installations of numerous computer stations of virtual exhibits in a museum environment. With Hilbert it is possible to switch on/off, monitor, repair/reboot, or update exhibits in a centralized way, allowing installations of dozens or hundreds of computers in a museum. This system has been tested in Mathematikon shopping center (Heidelberg) and in the forthcomming ESO-Supernova Museum (Munich).

The Maths of Outreach - Rebecca Cotton-Barratt & Marelli Grady

Assessment and evaluation of outreach activities in terms of impact and success on the students. The talk discussed the UK specific metrics to evaluate performance of students in GCSE (16) and A-level (18) exams, gender equality and population distribution across different university studies.

The Global Math Project: Uplifting mathematics for all - James Tanton

[www.theglobalmathproject.org The Global Math Project] aims to organize a week of mathematics (10/Oct/2017) coordinated with teachers around the world to give exciting lectures on a special topic in mathematics, relevant to the curriculum and at the same time appealing and engaging. For the 2017 Math Week, the motif for all activities is the Exploding dots idea, which serves as inspiration to talk about binary base, division, etc.

Mathematics Year 2020? - John Bibby

Bibby advocated to create a Mathematics Year in 2020 impulsed by the math outreach community, possibly as legacy of the MATRIX 2106 conference, and invited all the participants to engage in the project and share ideas.

NRICH and Wild maths programs - Ems Lord & Charlie Gilderdale

NRICH is a resource website that collects problems and puzzles in mathematics, organized by subject, curriculum, etc.

Wild maths are off-the-classroom materials, with a focus on creativity.

Geometric cognitive metaphors: the coexistence of mathematics, philosophy and art - Jacub Jernajczyk

Presentation of artistic visualization of metaphors of knowledge and information as geometric objects, inspired by ancient philosophy of Plato or Nicolas of Cusa. Notably polygons, squares and pixels as human knowledge used to approach a circle, representing perfect truth.

Big Data Discussion - Chris Budd

Esposition about what is big data and where it is relevant. The public was asked to throw ideas about who are the users of big data, which are the mathematics involved, and pros and cons of the advent of big data collection and treatment.

What the heck was the point? - Simon Singh

Singh revised some of his books and works on math popularization (The Simpsons, Big Bang, Fermat's last theorem, Katie Melua song...). Afterwards, he presented the "Top- top set project", a school program aimed to stimulate students with high capabilities. The program starts in fall 2016 in four UK schools, starting to students at Year 7 (aged 12). Top-top set is typically top 7% of students. The project involves a new curriculum, greater depth, more ambition through to age 18. It aims to be cost effective and scalable. More news of this project at @SLSingh and at the Good Thinking Society.

Towards creating an Exploratorium: the vision of MATHS WORLD UK - Margaret Brown & Geoff Wain

The hosts of the conference presented their vision and project of MathsWorldUK.

Public talks

• A World from a Sheet of Paper - Tadashi Tokieda.
• The Mathematics of Love - Hannah Fry.