Fractals at the NM State Legislature

For the 3′d year in a row, the Fractal Foundation had an interactive booth at “Math & Science Day” at the NM State Legislature in Santa Fe. The event was huge success and featured about a dozen educational organizations from around the state.
At our table, we taught hundreds of children and adults about fractals, and we collected 87 new student fractal triangles made by students, to be part of the Fractal Trianglethon project.

Many thanks to the legislators who spent some time talking about math and science education and who learned a little bit about fractals! Thanks also to Innovate Educate NM for hosting a delightful cocktail party where we could all mingle afterwards.

World’s Largest Fractal Triangle - coming 3/14!

We’re building a giant fractal made of 2187 student-made triangles, and we need your help! “The Fractal Trianglethon” will be the world’s largest fractal triangle. It’s going to be 96 feet wide! We’ve reserved the Albuquerque Convention Center west complex ballroom for the whole day for this event on March 14th 2010. Please join us in the excitement and help build the giant fractal! Children and adults welcome.

Please email “Volunteers (at) FractalFoundation.org” to sign up for a shift!

Timeline:

• Shift 1: 8:30AM-12 noon: We build the giant Fractal!
• Shift 2: 12 noon - 3:00 PM:  We open the hall to the public at noon
• Shift 3: 3:00 - 6:00 PM:  Celebration and Clean up.

At 3:14 PM, we will officially certify the World Record, and take a group photo with as many kids as we can squeeze into the fractal.

At 3:30 we will move to the atrium and unveil the new student winners of the Albuquerque Fractal Challenge and present their awards.

At 5:00 we start cleaning up the fractal triangles.

The date of the World Record event, March 14th is mathematically significant. It’s known as Pi-day, and is celebrated all over the world by math-lovers. Even more appropriately, it is the birthday of Waclaw Sierpinski, the inventor of this fantastic triangle. What better birthday present than to have thousands of children build the world’s largest Sierpinski Triangle!

Many thanks to the Albuquerque Convention Center for generously donating the ballroom for this event!

Albuquerque Kids on “Research Rocks” (pt2)

Channel 7 recently featured several of Albuquerque’s brightest, most creative students on its “Research Rocks” segment. Two of the winners of the 2009 Albuquerque Fractal Challenge, and one of the 2008 winners (and her brother) were featured in the video explaining how they’ve been exploring fractals on computer to create amazing mathematical artworks.

The host, Byron Morton, even travels to Downtown ABQ to film Rachel Washington’s amazing gigantic public art fractal. Many thanks to Byron, KOAT Channel 7, and Intel for sponsoring “Research Rocks!”

Watch the Video here.

2009 - The Year in Fractals

We want to share some of the exciting developments of the last year for fractals in education and in our community in general. We’ve grown so much and passed so many milestones, it’s good to pause and reflect on them. It’s great what we’ve accomplished - but we need your help to do more!

Please make a tax-deductible DONATION to support science, math and art education.

Any donations received before midnight MST 12/31 will be tax-deductible for 2009.

THANKS!

And now, a look back at 2009:

• Over the course of the year, we taught ~6000 children and 2500 adults about the beauty of math and science, through fractals. All told, since 2003, we’ve taught over 27,000 kids and 17,000 adults. That’s a lot of excited, inspired, motivated people!
• We sold out all 36 First Friday Fractal planetarium shows (Now 131 total!) There were many reports of people buying ’scalped’ tickets at up to $20. Not that we encourage this, but it’s a testament to the show’s success and the public’s love of fractals.
• We installed the first downtown building wrap - a vision over 5 years in the making, thanks to a grant from Albuquerque’s Urban Enhancement Trust Fund. We also featured the winning student fractals from the Albuquerque Fractal Challenge on 20 billboards, thanks to the fantastic support from Clear Channel Outdoor. And look for more fractal billboards, and building wraps, soon!
• We received a $6540 Albuquerque Community Foundation grant - their third year of generously supporting our outreach efforts to teach fractals in local schools.
• We received a $5000 grant from Xilinx, for the second year in a row, to comprehensively teach the students, teachers and parents at Apache Elementary about fractals. We’re proud to be connected to this school, and this company.
• We received a $25,000 Summer Institute grant from the Public Education Department, which will help us teach 40 Albuquerque teachers science and math lessons, skills and projects, they can bring to their classes, using fractals. We can’t teach all the kids fractals ourselves, but by teaching the teachers, we have a chance to make a giant impact.
• We received $1000 grant from Sandia Labs /  Lockheed Martin - a great first partnership with a major local supporter of science and math education.
• We licensed fulldome fractal content to two planetariums (in Illinois and Pennsylvania), the first time we’ve played our super-successful fulldome fractals anywhere outside NM. We’ve established a content distributor partnership with Spitz Planetariums to help grow this business and spread fractals around the world.
• We had a two week outdoor fractal art installation at the NM State Fair, seen by over 500,000 visitors, and a booth where 24 wonderful volunteers taught fractals to thousands of children.
• We were featured on KOAT Channel 7 (thanks to Intel), in Albuquerque the Magazine, Around 505, New Mexico Journeys, and the Rio Grande Sun.
• We launched a facebook fanpage in our first foray into social networking, and have gained over 1100 fans since April. It’s a great forum for people to share their ideas about - and their love of - fractals.

This has indeed been a whirlwind year of growth and fractal activity. Thanks for your support in helping us reach ever more people with the beauty of math and science. Look for more about our future vision coming up.

And for now…

“Research Rocks” features ABQ Students (part 1)

 

Albuquerque high school students Claudio Gonzalez and Christian Meyer were featured on KOAT Channel 7’s “Research Rocks” segment. The students were demonstrating their award-winning student research project  that explored the ability of fractal antennas to transmit radio signals more reliably than standard non-fractal antennas.

See the video here. 

Many thanks to Byron Morton from Channel 7, as well as Liz Shipley of Intel and Russ Fisher-Ives of Inquiry Facilitators for sponsoring the “Research Rocks” program.

See - and make - fractals at the NM State Fair

The 8 winning fractals from the Albuquerque Fractal Challenge have been installed on the NM State Fairgrounds, and they look spectacular!

We’re also hosting a table in the School Arts Building where you can come learn about fractals, and kids can make a fractal triangle that will be part of the Trianglethon project, where we’re making the world’s largest fractal triangle. We’ll be there till Sept 27, and hope you can come check it out. Many thanks to our great volunteers for staffing the booth!

Some of the winners from the Fractal Challenge, on display at the Fair:

 

 

 

Many thanks to Resolution Graphics for donating the printing, and to Symbiotic Builders for donating the installation. Also to Albuquerque’s Urban Enhancement Trust Fund and Albuquerque Community Foundation for sponsoring the Fractal Challenge!

Winning Fractal Publicly Dedicated

Rachel Washington’s winning fractal public artwork was officially dedicated at a ceremony in downtown Albuquerque on Monday March 9th. Mayor Martin J. Chavez spoke briefly and congratulated Rachel for her achievement. He then introduced Fractal Foundation executive director Jonathan Wolfe who said a few words explaining why fractals are valuable (”They make math fun, exciting, and beautiful!”) as well as thanking the Urban Enhancement Trust Fund, Albuquerque Community Foundation, and Clear Channel Outdoor for their support. Representatives of all the major local media were there, and the story made the local news programs.

See the Installation of the art.

Fractal Challenge Building Wrap!

On Tuesday, Feb 24th, the first Albuquerque Fractal Challenge billboard was installed on the parking garage at 3′d and Silver. The featured fractal was made by the youngest winner of the Fractal Challenge, 5th grader Rachel W. of Onate Elementary. Almost certainly the largest fractal print ever made, this amazing artwork is visible from large parts of downtown Albuquerque. Look for more giant public art fractals soon!

Many thanks to Mayor Martin J. Chavez, the Albuquerque Urban Enhancement Trust Fund and Albuquerque Community Foundation for making the project possible. Thanks also to BGK Albuquerque Property Management for letting us use their building facade!

See the Dedication ceremony.

Fractals at the State Legislature

The Fractal Foundation presented at the 2′nd annual Math and Science Day at the NM State Legislature. Hundreds of people wandered through the Roundhouse and learned about the many exciting initiatives happening in New Mexico that promise to transform the state of our education. 

Over a dozen organizations were present to show support for “NM Project 2012″ a statewide project with the ambitious goal of bringing New Mexico into the top 5th of states in Math and Science achievement within 5 years. 

Arizona Student Wins with Fractal Project

Julie Zhou, was selected to be a semifinalist at this years Intel Science Talent Search. Her research report, entitled “Chaos Theory, Fractal Dimensions and the Human Cerebrum,” is essentially a look at the brain, neural perceptions and cognitive development.

Read more here. 

Congratulations, Julie!

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