Reflection on the math art project

The project of math/arts of our team (Jimmy, Yingting, Heijin, Iqra, and Shan) is to make a polyhedra using black paper clips.

The big ball (polyhedra) consists 12 small five-point stars----actually it is almost the same as a soccer ball of the following type:

 To simulate the polyhedra we made, one can joint two vertice with the same color. Then the polyhedra can be seen as a mix of five-point stars and equaliteral triangles. Here is the picture:

The process of making such an artifect is fun! We first used 120 clips to make 12 five-point stars (as below):

Then we bended each point a little bit and connect it with another star's point. Repeating this process, we got the polyhedra. The last step was hard as we needed to connect the last star from the inside of the ball (we actually took the last star apart first).


These artifects can be good structures to raise students' interests and engagement levels in a math class. One can tell that without taking a clip's arms off, it is impossible to make a star. This step of taking the two arms off is like assumptions of mathematical theories:  it is only that ordinarity must be broken and assumptions must be built that a theory can be constructed.

Also, the building process requires a lot of teamworks, which means that no one can solo the mission. All students----higher level students and lower level students----in class can benefit from this collaboration.

Finally, stduents can easily accept homeworks made based on this artifect. For example, how many clips are used in this project? The answer is 150, with 120 for stars, and 30 for connecting the stars.

All in all, it is a nice bridge to involve students in the math classroom.