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M4TH5 W33K3ND at the Winchester Science Centre

Published: 14 May 2018
mathsweekend

The advert read "A weekend of maths fun at Winchester Science Centre delivered in partnership with the University of Southampton Department of Mathematical Sciences and Maths World UK. Maths games, puzzles and challenges for all!" and that is exactly what it was!

Nils Andersson writes: Some of our mathematicians contributed to the first ever Maths themed event at the Winchester Science Centre. The event had originally been planned for February but was cancelled due to snow. This time around the weather was much better. In fact, one might have thought it was too nice to spend a day inside talking numbers. Not so. We were busy pretty much the whole time. Kids and parents engaged with the range of – fairly simple – activities we had prepared, from stacking blocks to tiles and symmetries, throwing dice to explore distributions to counting in base -2 (indeed, base -2!). The GR group’s stretchy universe added gravity to the exhibit.

Overall, everything went really well (although we should perhaps not have hidden the cipher clues quite so well…) and a good time was had by all. The kids learned something and so did we. My own favourite moment was trying to explain negative numbers to a girl (perhaps age 5 or 6) that just barely knew subtraction. I think she got it – or, at least, she pretended really well. We were given able assistance by some volunteers – and imagine the surprise when found out that some of them were Maths PhD alumni. From the 1970s!

The feedback from the WSC staff has been very positive so they may well try to run similar events in the future. If they do - and there is an opportunity to take part – don’t miss out!

 

 

Oscar Dias
Dr Oscar Dias teaching
Posters
The posters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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