Fractal Trianglethon - around the World!

The 2011 Fractal Trianglethon is almost upon as (April 10th) and hundreds and hundreds of fractals keep pouring in from all over the world! Just today, we received a batch of 729 (that’s 3^6) triangles that had been made by students from McKinley Middle School (IS259) in Brooklyn New York. The students assembled it in their gym, and the story made the local paper.

Besides New York, we’ve been receiving fractals from all over the country, including California, Delaware, Georgia, Ohio, Minnesota and Ohio. The whole world is participating too! Fractals have been coming in from Canada, England, Australia and India as well.

We’re so excited to assemble 6561 individual fractal artworks into a giant one, 192′ wide. Thanks everyone, everywhere, for contributing!

Next year, to break our record and build the next bigger one, we’ll need 3 times as many triangles, or 19683. And we have to find an indoor space big enough to hold a triangle 384′ wide. (Anyone know the owners of the Houston Astrodome?…

Trianglethon - We built the World’s Largest Fractal Triangle!

On Sunday April 10, 2011, we built the world’s largest fractal triangle in the Albuquerque Convention Center. Almost 100 volunteers helped assemble the 192′ wide triangle - incredibly in just under 1 hour. Children from all over the world participated by creating triangles. See the full list of participating schools here.

This is a giant math project as well as a collaborative art project. The triangles are assembled in self-similar groups of three in the following sequence: 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, 729, 2187, 6561. One of the many math lessons people learn through this project is about exponents, and 6561 is 3 raised to the 8th power (3^8) or 3×3x3×3x3×3x3×3.

Many thanks to all the volunteers, all the children who made triangles, and to the Albuquerque Convention Center for graciously donating the exhibit hall for the Trianglethon!

Fractal Trianglethon a Giant Success!

The Fractal Foundation constructed the world’s largest fractal triangle on March 14, 2010 (PI-Day) in the Albuquerque Convention Center. Over 40 volunteers helped build the giant triangle and celebrate math, art, and the amazing wonder of fractals. The giant triangle was assembled out of 2187 individual triangles made by children from all over the world.
While 2187 is the number required to assemble a 7th order fractal triangle, 96 feet on a side, so many students had participated that there were enough to keep building, and altogether the pattern was extended to include 4036 triangles.

See a timelapse video of the assembly, which took place over almost 2 hours:

We are continuing the project, and in 2011 we intend  to break our own record by assembling an 8th order fractal triangle, 196 feet on a side, comprised of 6561 individual triangles.

We need more triangles, so Please Participate!

Gigantic thanks to all who participated last year: the dozens of volunteers who helped build the giant triangle, and especially to the thousands of children who each contributed a triangle!
And much gratitude to the Albuquerque Convention Center, for generously providing their ballrooms for the event. We look forward to returning next time in the even larger exhibit hall!

Congratulations and thanks, to everyone who made this possible. See the full list of participating schools here.

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!

Fractals in Silver City

The Fractal Foundation visited Silver City, NM, for the first time, as part of our ongoing campaign to Leave No Child unfractalled in New Mexico.
Many thanks to Tom Gruzska of the Western New Mexico University Math Department for inviting us down to bring fractals to the students of Silver City. Over the course of three presentations, we taught fractals to undergraduate calculus students, Aldo Leopold High School students, and many elementary school kids as well. Oh yes, lots of parents showed up to for the evening, family fractal night. The kids loved making fractal triangles too, which will be part of the world-record-breaking Fractal Trianglethon.

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!

Announcing the Fractal Trianglethon!

Help New Mexico Students create the world’s largest fractal triangle - and set a Guinness World Record! We’re teaching thousands of children around New Mexico to create the fractal pattern known as the Sierpinski Triangle. Children from 1’st grade and up are excited to participate in this fun, beautiful and educational activity. 

Once the students have made their own triangles, we can combine three of these triangles to form a larger, self-similar version: 

The next step is to combine 3 of these groups of 3 triangles into a bigger version:

Next, we combine 3 of these bigger groups to make a big fractal triangle:

This represents the output of one class, and it took about 30 minutes to make. The next step is to combine the fractals from 3 classes, to make a big triangle of 81 pieces. Then we will triple that to get 243 triangles, etc…

We will be assembling a GIANT fractal triangle, made of the combined output of 243 classes of 27 triangles each. That is 6561 children whose art will be part of this gigantic fractal. The finished piece will be 192 feet on a side. If we can only generate 2143 triangles, we will still set the World Record, and the finished triangle will be 96′ on a side.

We will be assembling it on March 14th, 2010, in the Albuquerque Convention Center, westside ballroom, all day long. Please join us!

We need lots of volunteer help to pull this off! Please contact volunteers (at) fractalfoundation.org to get involved!

Download the lesson plan and learn to do this project yourself in Fractivities.