Mathspig has been tracking the Covid 19 Stats through the Worldometer tracker and calculating the AVERAGE NO. DEATHS per day at the 50, 60, 70, 80,, 100 and now, the 200 DAY mark. The average is still rising which, as the average started low, is not good news. What can I say? Mask Up, folks.
MATHSPIG is reporting in from lockdown in MELBOURNE, Australia, where mask-wearing outdoors is now compulsory, there is an 8pm-5am curfew and travelling more than 5km from your residence is banned.
MATERIALS: Sheet of paper (eg. A4), ruler, scissors & coloured felt pens.
I am using an Aranea Black Mask Design. We are going to design and make a MATHS MASK PATTERN. If you want to make one out of fabric you will find all the necessary instructions here.
Middle school students around the world have been learning maths via Zoom. ZOOM needs computers & WIFI. There are so many resources online but I cannot over-emphasise the amazing 3D skills developed just by playing with objects in TINKERCAD. (See logo above. More info below) Anyone who wants to work developing video games or animated films has to understand the logic and maths of 3D. Read on. And it is more challenging than you might think.
The Pixar film, Finding Dory, began as storyboard sketches. There were 103,000 drawn for the film. The sketches are placed side-by-side in sequence in order to convey scenes and deliver a rough sense of how the story unfolds.
How many 64-page Exercise books would the storyboard take?
Only one side of the page of the 64-page exercise book would be used for storyboarding.
If put into flip Book form the storyboard sketches would produce a ‘rough’ version of the film.
If you are making a film about, say, Godzilla, you want him to be big. VERY BIG. But he has to share a screen with human characters.
If Godzilla is too big all the humans look like ants.
If he is too small … he looks like a toy TRex.
Height: 355ft Godzilla’s towering height in the 2014 film—the tallest onscreen incarnation ever
Tail: 550ft 4in Total length of Godzilla’s spiked tail.
Volume: 90,000 tons Godzilla’s volume if filled with water
Teeth: 3.51 ft Length from the root to the tips of Godzilla’s canine teeth
Teeth: 60 Teeth in Godzilla’s mouth
Roar: 3 miles. Approximate distance Godzilla’s roar reverberates. (100,000W Power of the 12-foot-high, 18-foot-wide speaker array from which the sound designers blasted Godzilla’s roar to record the sound in a “real world” context)
Feet: 58ft Total width of Godzilla’s feet across the widest point
Feet: 60ft Length of Godzilla’s footprint from toe to heel
The average height for 14-year-old boys in the U.S. is 64.5 inches or 5 feet 4½ inches.
For 14-year-old girls in the U.S. the average height is 62.5 inches or 5 feet 2½ inches.
Godzilla = 355ft
14 yo = 5’ 3”
To make a 3D graph like this see below.
You vs Godzilla’s Footprint
You vs Godzilla’s Tooth
3D modeling can be approached in several ways. There is a good explanation here.
One method is to use a 3D scanner to produce a 3D mesh.
Godzilla model under construction
Digital Godzilla as 3D mesh
The mesh consists of polygons. You’ll find everything you want to know about polygons here.
The greater the no. of polygons the better the resolution in a 3D mesh, the better the resolution of the character or object as more shading and texture variation can be added.
So the POLYGON COUNT or POLY COUNT is a measure of the quality of an image.
Here are some POLY COUNTS:
500,000 polygons.
It took the 4 CGI artists 6 months to fully nail the texture of Godzilla’s scales. (See above)
Just the space station ran close to 3 trillion polygons.
Devastator had 13 million polygons
The Kraken had 7 million Polygons.
Apart from some bluescreen shots of live-action actors in cockpits, it’s all CG: gunships, missiles, smoke trails, water, fire, an army of photorealistic virtual characters, and a giant tree made of 20 million polygons with 1.2 million leaves.
More here.
(See below)
The Gollum head model consisted of just over 2,600 polygons, which were mostly quads.
More here.
The POLY COUNT is always greater in animated movies than in video games mainly because a higher poly count takes longer and costs more. A higher resolution is needed in a movie as it is shown on a much bigger screen.
Gollum: Game vs Film 3D model
Here are some POLY COUNTS for some popular games:
The Amazing Spiderman
Spiderman – 11,652
Assassin’s Creed 3
Benjamin Franklin – 17,744
Charles Lee – 25,994
Connor Kenway – 28,501
Desmond – 14,934
Haytham Kenya – 19,985
Batman: Arkham City
Batman: Film Version
Batman: Game Model
Batman Beyond suit – 13,050
Harley Quinn – 17,731
Harley Quinn (DLC) – 19,110
Poison Ivy – 15,977
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Frank Woods (full gear) – 19,777
Crysis 2 (console)
Nano suit – 19,073
Multiplayer suit – 27,414
TINKERCAD is the free online resource that allows students to create their own 3D graphs – like Godzilla vs You (above) or 3D images that can be used for 3D printing. Play with the program. Mathspig had a little play and produced the genetically challenged chicken (below).
Tinkercad Dashboard
Find here.
Drag and drop shapes.
More here.
Play with shape dimensions.
More here.
Create figures for 3D printer.
MATHSPIG REPORT CARD: More playing with program needed!!!
Middle school students around the world have been learning maths via Zoom. ZOOM needs computers & WIFI. There are so many resources online but I cannot over-emphasise the amazing 3D skills developed just by playing with objects in TINKERCAD. (See logo above. More info below) Anyone who wants to work developing video games or animated films has to understand the logic and maths of 3D. Read on. And it is more challenging than you might think.
The Pixar film, Finding Dory, began as storyboard sketches. There were 103,000 drawn for the film. The sketches are placed side-by-side in sequence in order to convey scenes and deliver a rough sense of how the story unfolds.
How many 64-page Exercise books would the storyboard take?
Only one side of the page of the 64-page exercise book would be used for storyboarding.
If put into flip Book form the storyboard sketches would produce a ‘rough’ version of the film.
If you are making a film about, say, Godzilla, you want him to be big. VERY BIG. But he has to share a screen with human characters.
If Godzilla is too big all the humans look like ants.
If he is too small … he looks like a toy TRex.
Height: 108.2m Godzilla’s towering height in the 2014 film—the tallest onscreen incarnation ever
Tail: 167.74m Total length of Godzilla’s spiked tail
Volume: 89,724 m3 Godzilla’s total volume in the 2014 film.
Volume: 90,000 tons Godzilla’s volume if filled with water
Teeth: 1.07m Length from the root to the tips of Godzilla’s canine teeth
Teeth: 60 Teeth in Godzilla’s mouth
Roar: 4.83km Approximate distance Godzilla’s roar reverberates. (100,000W Power of the 3.7m-high, 5.5m-wide speaker array from which the sound designers blasted Godzilla’s roar to record the sound in a “real world” context)
Feet: 17.66m Total width of Godzilla’s feet across the widest point
Feet: 18.18m Length of Godzilla’s footprint from toe to heel
The average height for 14-year-old boys in the U.S. is 164 cm.
For 14-year-old girls in the U.S. the average height is 158.75 cm.
Godzilla = 108.2 m
We’ll assume an average height of, say, 1.6m for a 14 yo.
14 yo = 1.6 m
You vs Godzilla’s Footprint
You vs Godzilla’s Tooth
A very funny Aussie commentary.
3D modeling can be approached in several ways. There is a good explanation here.
One method is to use a 3D scanner to produce a 3D mesh.
Godzilla model under construction
Digital Godzilla as 3D mesh
The mesh consists of polygons. You’ll find everything you want to know about polygons here.
The greater the no. of polygons the better the resolution in a 3D mesh, the better the resolution of the character or object as more shading and texture variation can be added.
So the POLYGON COUNT or POLY COUNT is a measure of the quality of an image.
Here are some POLY COUNTS:
500,000 polygons.
It took the 4 CGI artists 6 months to fully nail the texture of Godzilla’s scales. (See above)
Just the space station ran close to 3 trillion polygons.
Devastator had 13 million polygons
The Kraken had 7 million Polygons.
Apart from some bluescreen shots of live-action actors in cockpits, it’s all CG: gunships, missiles, smoke trails, water, fire, an army of photorealistic virtual characters and a giant tree made of 20 million polygons with 1.2 million leaves.
More here.
(See below)
The Gollum head model consisted of just over 2,600 polygons, which were mostly quads.
More here.
The POLY COUNT is always greater in animated movies than in video games mainly because a higher poly count takes longer and costs more. A higher resolution is needed in a movie as it is shown on a much bigger screen.
Gollum: Game vs Film 3D model
Here are some POLY COUNTS for some popular games:
The Amazing Spiderman
Spiderman – 11,652
Assassin’s Creed 3
Benjamin Franklin – 17,744
Charles Lee – 25,994
Connor Kenway – 28,501
Desmond – 14,934
Haytham Kenya – 19,985
Batman: Arkham City
Batman: Film Version
Batman: Game Model
Batman Beyond suit – 13,050
Harley Quinn – 17,731
Harley Quinn (DLC) – 19,110
Poison Ivy – 15,977
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Frank Woods (full gear) – 19,777
Crysis 2 (console)
Nano suit – 19,073
Multiplayer suit – 27,414
TINKERCAD is the free online resource that allows students to create their own 3D graphs – like Godzilla vs You (above) or 3D images that can be used for 3D printing. Play with the program. Mathspig had a little play and produced the genetically challenged chicken (below).
Tinkercad Dashboard
Find here.
Drag and drop shapes.
More here.
Play with shape dimensions.
More here.
Create figures for 3D printer.
MATHSPIG REPORT CARD: More playing with program needed!!!
…………………………………………………………..
This is middle school maths at its best. To understand Wild Fires you must understand the angle of a slope. REQUIREMENTS: Just this story and a white or blackboard to show how the fire speed changes with the slope angle.
On 5th August 1949 Wag Dodge was dropped by parachute with 14 other firefighters into Mann Gulch, a steep-sided gully in a Montana pine forest. Firefighters who parachute in to put out small blazes started by lightning are called Smoke Jumpers. As they worked their way down the sides of the gully the breeze was blowing away from them. But the wind soon shifted. This produced an updraft, which increases the speed of the fire front. The 15 Smoke Jumpers turned and started running for their lives uphill.
Heat rises and so there is a Chimney Effect pushing the fire uphill. The rule of thumb used by firefighters is:
Each 10º increase in slope, the fire front speed doubles. So a fire front traveling at 60 kph (37 mph) becomes a fire front traveling at 120kph (75 mph) moving up a slope of 10º.
When the fire front changed direction Wag Dodge and 14 other Smoke Jumpers found themselves running for their lives up a steep slope. What did Wag do next?
ANS: Here’s the amazing thing. Wag realised he could not outrun the fire at that point. So he stopped, took off his backpack, took out some MATCHES, and lit a fire in the grassy patch in front of him. Just before the firewall hit he threw himself face down on the burnt patch. He survived. The other 14 firefighters did not. You will find maths exercises here: METRIC UNITS and USA UNITS.
Try it first. You might be surprised.
Requirements: This story.
Goldfish Memory This is what Epidemiologists do. They find out if there are statistics to support the theory. These mathematicians have been providing vital information during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
According to the ABC news, this myth was busted by a 15-year-old Adelaide schoolboy named Rory Stokes. He fed his goldfish near a Red Lego brick. The fish started anticipating food near the brick. He took it away and replaced it several weeks later. The fish remembered the red brick!!! More here.
Other maths myths to check out:
Chewing food 32 times before swallowing helps you lose weight. Here.
You must drink 8 glasses of water a day. Here.
You are 6 degrees of separation from anyone in the world. Here.
It takes 43 muscles to frown and only 17 to smile. Here.
Requirements: A pencil and a timer on a phone.
Can students manage a drumbeat to popular songs? Here are some songs with their BPMs (Beats per minute listed).
Tones and I Dance Monkey 98 BPM.
The Rubens Live In Life 104 BPM.
Lady Gaga Bad Romance 118 BPM
……………….Just Dance 119 BPM
Flume Rushing Back 176 BPM (Try the middle of the track. It varies)
Panic! At the Disco 186 BPM (Recommended by Jog.FM for jogging)
More DRUM BEATS and a story about Drummers’ Brains here.
Requirements: Phonebook.
Read the instructions at this link. Very simple. And you can amaze the students. Or Vice Versa. A student can amaze a maths teacher.
Requirements: pipe cleaners or stick cube and detergent and a bucket with water.
All ages love this exercise.
How? Read the link here.
Challenge: Students use a smartphone to take 5 mathsy photos for homework. Ideas here.
However, start in the maths room. Look for parallel lines, angles, rectangles, spheres, parabolas (not in the textbooks). See parabola below.
Requirements: A product with a barcode.
Read this link and check the barcode.
Requirements: Box of matches, an accomplice.
Read this link and amaze the class.
Requirements: 2 large coins. 20c in Australia, Half-$ USA or 25p UK.
Read this link first. It’s so counterintuitive.
The MindYourDecisions blog (Video below) presents the PARADOX beautifully.
Now consider the example of the coin rolling around a coin of the same size. Intuitively we think …’OK. Same circumference, so the coin will rotate once as it rolls around a same-size coin. But this doesn’t happen. It rotates twice.
This observation is SOOOOOOOO counterintuitive we have to know why?…
Mr. MindYourDecisions doesn’t explain why this happens. The answer is interesting. The relevant point in the ROLLING COIN PARADOX is the centre of the rolling coin. The rolling coin rotates about that point. And that centre (the red dot in the gif below) moves through a circle twice the circumference of the stationary coin. It is much easier to understand when you see it. (Below)
Excellent Covid-19 stats update here.
Excellent Covid-19 stats update here.
A raucous romp through the absurdities of American Gun Culture
10 Reasons Students Hate Maths: BUSTED
10 Reasons Students Hate Maths: BUSTED
10 Reasons students hate maths: BUSTED
10 Reasons Why Students Hate Maths: BUSTED
10 Reasons students Hate Maths: BUSTED
10 reasons to hate maths: BUSTED
10 reasons to hate maths: BUSTED
10 reasons to hate maths: BUSTED
10 Reasons to Hate Maths: BUSTED
10 Reasons to Hate Maths: BUSTED
Comic & cutting comment plus random raves.
