For all brainteaser fanatics, this one is for you. Challenge yourself to move four matches to form three equilateral triangles. Press pause to think about it before you find out the answer. Are you stumped yet? Can you figure out this brainteaser in less than ten minutes? You' ...more
This video shows how to get an equilateral triangle from a square - that is a triangle where each edge has the same length (and each angle has 60 degree). Learn this great origami technique.
This video walks you through the steps of solving a problem that requires us to figure out the area of an equilateral triangle inscribed in a circle. This excellent video shows you a clean blackboard, with the instructors voice showing exactly what to do. Don't fret, any quest ...more
Watch this video to learn how to win drinks with the 6 matches 4 triangles bar trick. This tutorial will teach you and awesome scam that will fool everyone every time. You have make 4 equilateral triangles using only 6 matches.
It's Monday, and once again it's time to highlight some of the community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. In addition, I thought we'd take a look at having fun with the geometrical properties of polygons and circles by using one of the best circles I know, the p ...more
This clip shows the Fujimoto method of folding sheets into equilateral triangles. The result is a sheet of paper that is pre-creased for use as a base in creating tessellations or geometric tiling patterns. There is no audio for this clip, just a closeup of the hands in action.
After Cory Poole posted some great Escher snowflakes, and Cerek Tunca had the great idea of using it as a base for a tetrahedron, well, I just had to give it a go. I will post a few more pictures and variants later (I think this was what Cerek was envisaging—if not let me know ...more
In this video you can learn how to find the area of a hexagon. Visualize that the hexagon is made up of six equilateral triangles, with each side of the hexagon as the base for a different triangle. Determine the length of any triangle side by measuring it. Each side should be ...more
Last Thursday's post demonstrated how to Make Yin-Yang Pillow boxes, which were based on equilateral triangles and squares. The units for making these boxes were created by Phillip Chapman-Bell, who runs an amazing origami blog and has a spectacular flickr photostream. Using t ...more
In this video, we learn how to make an Escher-esque tessellation. Start with construction paper, then make an equilateral triangle onto it. Next, make a shape on one end of the triangle, making any shape you would like. Now cut your shape out, then trace it onto another piece ...more
What is fractal? Well, it's a geometric shape which sometimes is hard to draw but looks very nice. There are some fractals which are easy to draw for example Koch snowflake or Sierpinski triangle: Drawing Koch Snowflake: Draw a equilateral triangle (every side is equal) On e ...more
Last post, we looked at fractal cookies based off of the recipe by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. In this post, we'll follow their recipe for fractal cupcakes based off of the Koch Snowflake, which we used previously to decorate pumpkins for Halloween. This past Sunday, I d ...more
This video will show you simply how to calculate the area of any triangle using basic geometry formulas. Since a triangle is basically half of a rectangle, the formula for calculating the area of a triangle is base times height. This video offers some insight and examples prov ...more
It's Monday, which means once again, it's time to highlight some of the recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. I also thought that we'd try and create something known as an "Orderly Tangle" or "Polylink". This week we had a few submissions based off ...more
Not all polygons are tessellation shapes. A tessellation is a collection of figures that can be put together to fill a plane surface without overlaps or gaps. I’m sure that you have already seen many tessellations in real life. The tiles in the kitchen and the puzzle you have ...more
In Monday's post, we created a sliceform model of a hyperbolic paraboloid. In today's post, we will create a similar model using skewers. The hyperbolic paraboloid is a ruled surface, which means that you can create it using only straight lines even though it is curved. In fac ...more
Each curved module replaces the equilateral triangle of a simple octahedron. Inspired and copied from Cory's post with original artwork by Richard Sweeney
Can you dissect an equilateral triangle into pieces that can be rearranged into a square? If you think you can, you may have mastered the Pythagorean theorem. Can you figure out how to draw a straight line without a reference edge? If so, you might just be the pioneer of the ...more
Halloween is coming up, so many of you may have a need or desire to carve a pumpkin and turn it into a Jack O' Lantern. This week we are going to explore carving our pumpkins into interesting geometric shapes. In this post, we will carve the pumpkins into spherical versions of ...more
Fractals and stars are two of the most beautiful and complicated-looking classes of geometric objects out there. We're going to explore these objects and how to carve them on a pumpkin. Unlike the last one on carving polyhedral pumpkins, where we used the entire pumpkin to car ...more
It's Monday, which means once again, it's time to highlight some of the recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. In this post, we'll also make a flexagon, which is a type of transformable object. Rachel Mansur of Giveaway Tuesdays posted several pictur ...more
Watch this simple instructional video and learn how to turn a paper square into several other polygons. These basic origami projects also serve as edifying practice in simple geometry. You can fold an equilateral triangle, a regular hexagon, and a regular octagon from square o ...more
There's a set of drawing tools that have been available for a long time on the iPhone that helps you create handwritten notes and sketches. It's great when you need a free-form way to capture your ideas, and now it's even better. Apple added shape recognition in iOS 14 so that ...more