Blog Post One

COVID-19 Required Different Ways of Doing Things

Learning with Math Machines has been a central part of my life since 2007 and I cherish the good times of working with Robert Chaney, Marta Gruesbeck, Jason Andrew, Marion Prince and the many teachers who participated in our workshops. After 13 years, however, the new environment of COVID-19 has made it clear that our system of extended in-person, hands-on workshops had to be reconsidered. We hope to have more of those workshops, but it is unclear when it will be possible. The efforts needed to maintain a largely inactive 501(c)(3) organization now seem better directed to supporting alternative modes of learning. We are hopeful that new vaccines will help us out of the current crisis, but we don’t—and shouldn’t—expect education to return completely to what it was before. Alternative modes of learning will continue to be important, and we hope this new website will aid in making project-based learning experiences available to an ever-growing number of students.

We strive here to provide learners and teachers with ideas and resources for projects that apply mathematics and science to real technical and engineering tasks. The goal will always be authentic in the sense of producing a specific outcome that could be useful outside the classroom. For example, one outcome within our project area on “Disposal of Chemical Weapons” might be to propose a plan for assessing and mitigating the danger posed by existing toxic waste sites. An outcome within our project area on RGB imaging might be a carefully planned long-exposure photograph of moving lights. Our goal here is not to write detailed specifications for any specific project. Our goal is to provide ideas, background information and informational resources that will empower learners, teachers and mentors to design their own projects and to carry them out.

Thanks for joining us in this new journey!