6. Funky, Fab and Fantastic. Yeah! That’s Middle School Maths

Dutch Artist, Theo Jansen’s Strandbeests or Beach Beasts are the most mystical, magical mechanical beasts to walk the earth. And the maths involved is mind boggling with respect to accuracy.

Once again (See 10. Funky, Fab and Fantastic) you can see the maths at work here, but getting it right is tricky.

Here are some of his bigger creatures in action:

But you can build your own Standbeest from a kit that you buy online. This is a wonderful ‘maths’ challenge. And cost is $US10-20 or less. Here is the Strandbeest built by Mr Mathspig.

But you will really appreciate how hard it is to immitate animal movement if you try to construct ONE LEG in balsa wood or icecream sticks. Mathspig took the dimensions of our small Strandbeest (written in mm on each strut) and created this gif using Gifcreator here. Can you make a beast leg walk?

You can see a more detailed design of the Strandbeest leg here.