MathsJam 2019: Mobioids and Platonic Solids
MathJam
So, it’s time for another one of my monologues about places I have been, this time it’s MathsJam Annual Gathering. The MathsJam Annual Gathering is an event held by Colin Wright for recreational Mathematicians of all walks of Life and of all levels. It’s mainly based around talks and people bringing things to show, I took my olympiad booklets and my code to show.
Day 0
I left on Friday, for the North, suprisingly scared of what I would face but with my bright eye, bushy tailed approach I give to everything, really not knowing how I’d get to Yarnfield Park from Stone, so I hoped there’d be people doing the shuttle service. For details on the train journey, I shall point you to the newly installed ℵ n ∀ n∈ ℕ. So we shall fast forward to when I arrived at Stone, I got off the platform, and met a group of what looked like Mathematicians due to their baggage, so I shyly asked: “Are you here for the MathsJam?”, to which they loudly replied “Of Course!” in recieved prenounciation, at this point, I knew I came to the right event.
After some small talk on our way to MathsJam, I was greeted by Colin, then I went and dropped my stuff at my room and then went back to talk to people. Firstly I was earmarked by the delightful Pat, to which I ended up spilling all the beans about who I looked up to and who were my idols. This was to be the best thing and the first thing I did all weekend. Pat is a Mathematical artist, she makes Mathematical objects that are knitted and runs knitting sessions, she can be found here. She was a real gem and I would like to thank her for it. She made my first MathsJam 100 times better. She showed me the object I have pictured to the right, what does it represent, answers on a postcard please. We chatted for a while, before I found the name badges and then sorted and handed them out, this was the first of my jobs for the weekend and I enjoyed so very much. The rest of the evening was spend playing board games after a delightlful dinner, with new faces, but very very kind new faces. I felt very included right from the start.
Day I
Day I started with a nice breakfast and more chatter, then it was time to set up the room for the weekend. It was moving tables and moving the name badges even more! So when we got the table sorted, I got to chat to the editors of the Chalkdust magazine, and got a couple of free issues. I was told that they accept articles from everybody, so look out for my articles in the future!
Then I got to talk with people about their mathematical things and what they do, I chatted about my olmpiads and others talked about their expertise. I got to talk to a lot of Mathematical Artists and many other people. Christian came over and showed me his 3D printed sheldonian theatre roof and his other 3D printed odities. We built the roof together and he showed me how the structure could hold two one litre glass bottles of water without breaking, it was a very interesting effect. Then I was shown a elliptical spinning top, which when spun on it’s sminor axis would spin un-stablely until it spun on its major axis, this was an interesting effect, one I had seen a YouTube video on before, but hadn’t worked through the Maths myself.
It was then time to set up for the talks, so I worked with the existing tech crew and put all the hardware together for an exciting line up of talks Everything went very very smoothly, unlike other events I had been to, the microphones worked effortlessly all weekend. So it was time to begin, I ran around (as per usual), telling people where to sit and in which order they were to speak, although some were illusive, but were found soon enough. I found myself a place and the talks began.