Month:

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 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

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

How do Forces Work?

  • September 9

The sculpture Sky uses a structural system of fiberglass rods to keep all of its components supported and in place. The arrangement of these rods make use of tension and compression forces to spread out weight and and force along the entire structure – something that we can analyze through basic 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 her... CONTINUE READING

How Hard Do Robots Work?

  • September 9

Much of the luggage sorting and transport at the Dallas Love Field Airport is manage by robots built by the Daifuku company. This system can process massive amounts of luggage every year – but how much does it handle, on average, every day? With some simple calculations, we can calculate just how fast this robot-run system operates compared to a human-only method. This video was supported by the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs. Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to extend s... CONTINUE READING

STEM in the Arts (Full version)

  • September 9

Join Sam Baker of KERA Public Radio as he moderates a panel with creative and technical professionals from across the Dallas Arts District and discovers how STEM is part of their work. Curators, dance choreographers, and other professionals who shape the offerings of key institutions in the Dallas Arts District share their perspectives on the math and science embedded in the work that they do. Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to extend student learning for K-12 grade levels are freel... CONTINUE READING

STEM in the Arts (Short)

  • September 9

Join Sam Baker of KERA Public Radio as he moderates a panel with creative and technical professionals from across the Dallas Arts District and discovers how STEM is part of their work. Curators, dance choreographers, and other professionals who shape the offerings of key institutions in the Dallas Arts District share their perspectives on the math and science embedded in the work that they do. Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to extend student learning for K-12 grade levels are freel... CONTINUE READING

How Can we Estimate Really Tall Things We Can’t Reach?

  • September 9

Dr. Glen Whitney, founder of the National Museum of Mathematics in New York and walkSTEM advisor, uses the mathematical properties of rectangles to help him measure the width of louvers that are extremely high us. Supplementary Activity Guides for this video to extend student learning for K-12 grade levels are freely available here: https://talkstem.org/talkstem-activity-guides/ Support for these guides w... CONTINUE READING

Where is the Pattern?

  • September 9

Carpets often use repeating patterns to make filling a space easier and visually appealing, and the area surrounding the Dallas Public Library chalkboard wall is no exception. Using the board as a handy planning space, we map out and design carpet patterns of our own using various mathematical concepts.... CONTINUE READING