Month:

How Do Artists Use Technology?

• September 9

The design of a sculpture like Luminaria takes a lot of work, and technology can help make that happen! From the initial data turned into the patterns on the lanterns sides, to the compute software used to shape them into a wrap-around lantern, to the steel-cutting and engineering needed to construct and install them, the sections of this piece prove great examples of how art and science are never far apart. This video was supported by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs. Supplementary... CONTINUE READING

What is Bernoulli’s Principle?

• September 9

The sculpture Luminaria highlights multiple scientific principles involved in the function of aircraft with the shapes cut into the steel cylinders it’s made up of. One of these is, represented by swirling lines, is Bernoulli’s principle, used to characterize how forcing air to travel at different speeds can generate a lifting force. The way this principle is taken advantage of through mechanical engineering to help airplane wings fly is discussed. This video was supported by the City of Dal... CONTINUE READING

What is an Irregular Quadrilateral?

• September 9

Dr. Glen Whitney, founder of the National Museum of Mathematics in New York and walkSTEM advisor, discusses some of the shapes within the Campanile Window installation at Dallas Love Field airport, and how they’re used to support and integrate the irregularly-shaped windows with the more classically rectangular shapes of the ticketing hall in which they've been hung. This video was supported by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs. Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to exten... CONTINUE READING

What Mathematical Differences Do We See?

• September 9

The four individual works that make up Campanile Window have a similar-looking structure to each other, but are not identical. Methods of quantifying some of their differences mathematically are discussed, analyzing color, lines, and interior shapes. This video was supported by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs. Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to extend student learning for K-12 grade levels are freely available here:... CONTINUE READING

What is Intuitive Wayfinding?

• September 9

Airports can be bustling places, filled with thousands of people all trying to get to where they need to go all at once. Interior designers can help direct this flow by emphasizing intuitive wayfinding in their work – subtle clues and markers incorporated in a space's design that make navigation easier to naturally understand. In Love Field, this involves patterns in the tiles and ceilings that help guide travelers to where they need to go. This video was supported by the City of Dallas Office... CONTINUE READING

What is the slope?

• September 9

A high school student at Hockaday School created a campus STEM walk for elementary students to enjoy. In this walk stop, she invites us to consider the slope of the outdoor amphitheater on the campus.... CONTINUE READING

Why is the bollard this shape?

• September 9

A high school student at Hockaday School created a campus STEM walk for elementary students to enjoy. In this walk stop, she wonders why the traffic bollard is the shape it is.... CONTINUE READING

How many sections are there?

• September 9

A high school student at Hockaday School created a campus STEM walk for elementary students to enjoy. In this walk stop, she looks at the beautifully statue of Hypatia, an ancient Egyptian mathematician and astronomer who died 415 AD. Here she notices the circle surrounding the sections and asks us to do some math to figure out the number of sections within this circle.... CONTINUE READING

What is Art Deco?

• September 9

Fair Park, a state and National Historic Landmark, has the largest collection of 1930s Art Deco style architecture in the United States, located on 277 acres. In this video, we briefly discuss what art deco is and how it is related to STEM.... CONTINUE READING

Shapefinder – Goodnight Dallas

• September 9

In this video, we share the ways you can use this convenient math measuring tool to explore the places you visit with your child/student, including the place they are in right now from home to campus! You can freely print the shapefinder tool as well as the angle-a-tron tool onto an acetate using these pdfs... CONTINUE READING