Making math fun for the littles

The National Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) went online-only during the COVID19 pandemic of 2020. In order to continue the mission of education – in this case specifically for very young children – the educators employed by the MoMath created lessons to be taught via ZOOM. These are some of the illustrations that were created to be used on the worksheets that were designed for use in MoMath’s MathPlay program.

An enigmatic puzzle

A few years back, on the heels of the release of The Imitation Game , MoMath hosted a puzzle hunt based on that film. To that end, the exhibit designer and I were tasked to create a codex cylinder for one of the problems the participants were to solve. He created this lovely acrylic and magnet device and my job was to make the letters to be manipulated to break the code. Seeing that the hunt was based on the movie, and the movie was based on Alan Turing’s quest to break the German ENIGMA code during World War 2, I used the ENIGMA code machine as an inspiration – using typewriter-style lettering for the letters, and including a patterned interior based on the housing of the ENIGMA machine itself.  These devices are still used by the Museum education department as part of their code-breaking lessons.

Go (math) team, go!

Every week, the president of the National Museum of Mathematics creates two puzzles that appear in both The Wall Street Journal and the website varsity.momath.org. The task here was to create a logo for these puzzles for their title: Varsity Math. The number to the bottom right of the logo indicates which week the puzzles are related to – a later addition to the design that I’m quite pleased with. It reflects the theme and is easily changed from week-to-week.

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