From May 17th to May 19th of 2019, I volunteered for MathHappens at Maker Faire Bay Area in San Mateo, California. MakerFaire is a place to "celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself mindset".
Lauren Siegel, the director of MathHappens, brought suitcases and boxes full of math manipulatives and activities for the guests at Maker Faire. Some of the items displayed in the booth were about the Fibonacci sequence, nautical navigation, tessellations, and fractals. My favorite item to tell guests about was the golden ratio caliper. I first showed them a 1:1 caliper, then the 1:2 caliper, and lastly the 1:phi caliper, which showed the golden ratio. I explained that that the golden ratio was frequently found in nature and asked guests to test this by measuring their body parts, pictures of animals, and even an actual stuffed armadillo! Some guests were so interested in the golden ratio after this activity that they asked if they could make their own golden ratio caliper, which we allowed them to do.
We had a make-it-take-it station in the booth as well. Guests decorated fractals by finding patterns within each laser cut piece, and some took multiple pieces to connect them like a puzzle. They also created necklaces by decorating a compass rose and the spiral of Theodorus. The 10'x10' booth was so crowded at times that the volunteers had to step out to make more room for the guests.
While I enjoyed volunteering at Maker Faire Austin, I really liked volunteering at Maker Faire Bay Area because I had the opportunity to work with Celeste, who is a UTeach student from UC Berkeley. We shared our experiences being in UTeach at our respective schools. She told me that she did not know what Making was before volunteering at Maker Faire, but by the last day of the event, she seemed genuinely interested in it. Hopefully she can spread the word about Making at her school so they can start a UTeach Maker program there!
Here are more pictures of me enjoying Maker Faire Bay Area:
