Final day at Girls Plus Math!

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Today is the final day at Girls Plus Math. I'm sad and happy. I'm sad because I really like math camp, but I'm glad that I'm going home.
We started off our day learning about Maryam Mirzakhani. She was born in Tehran, Iran in May 1997. She actually had some difficulties during school with math, but you would never know because she is very successful. She won gold medals in the 1994 and 1995 Mathematical Olympiad! She earned her PhD in mathematics at Harvard in 2004. She was the first female recipient of the Fields Medal in 2014. And yet, despite all of her success, she is married and has a daughter named Anahita.
We also learned some math magic tricks. Just a warning.
We worked on probability, which is basically what you call the odds of something happening.
We worked more with Pascal's Triangle. But instead of numbers, we colored.
We learned about encoding and decoding binary codes. Pretty cool, right?
And we also did some more polynomiography.

This is for my dog, Mia.

This is my other dog, Roscoe.

That was all we did today. Later today, we are going to the bookstore. I had a lot of fun here at math camp, but I am ready to go home.

~Mallory~

Day Three at Girls Plus Math!

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Today was the third day at Girls Plus Math!
The day started out with us learning about Maria Agnesi, who lived from 1718 to 1799. She was a child prodigy. She was tutored to learn five languages: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Spanish. She disliked all of the language learning. After her mother died, she educated all twenty-one of her younger siblings. To help teach her little brothers, she wrote two math volumes. After her father died, she used her wealth to help others, which made her die poor.
Next, we went on a website called sporcle.com. It is a quiz website, and it also has some logic puzzles.
Then we learned about Fibonacci. Fibonacci was actually a man called Leonardo of Pisa, who was born in the late twelfth century, but his name was interpreted to Fibonacci and it stuck with him.
We also learned about the Golden Ratio, which is 1.618033.
Then we learned about factorials. Factorials are an exclamation point, but they have a completely different meaning in math. Basically, it's a way to multiply.
Then we played a game called Mastermind. In Mastermind, somebody makes a code using four colored pieces, and somebody else tries to crack the code.
Then we worked with pentominoes. No, the are not pentagon-shaped dominoes. They are shapes with the area of five half inch to an inch squares. We used them to try to make a square.
I also made some more polynomiography.

This is Lily, one of my best friends.

This one is Makayla, another one of my best friends.

And this one is Bailey, another best friend of mine.

That is all that we did today. But yesterday, a girl named Maria got sick and had to leave. I hope she starts feeling better soon. Anyway, today was a great day and I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

~Mallory~

Day Two at Girls Plus Math!

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Today was the second day at Girls Plus Math!
We started out our day learning about Ada Byron Lovelace. She was the daughter of Lord Byron, he was a poet. But Ada never met him. Ada was home-schooled. She was gifted in making model boats when she was eight, and designed a flying machine when she was thirteen! Amazing! Later on, she wrote the description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer. Ada was also considered as the first "programmer". She lived a wonderful life, but sadly died of cancer and unnecessary bloodletting by her doctors.
We also worked with algebra tiles today. Algebra tiles are squares and rectangles used to help you understand algebra better.
Then we learned about the counting principle. The counting principle is, as written in my notes, "when there are M ways to do one thing, and N ways to do another there are MxN ways to do both. We used the counting principle for problems like, "I have a green shirt, a red shirt, and a blue shirt and blue jeans and khakis. How many outfits do I have?"
We learned more about polygons and polyhedra. Polygons are shapes with straight lines, no curves, and are closed so there are no openings. Polyhedra are 3-Dimensional shapes like the cube, the tetrahedron, and the dodecahedron. If you don't know the shapes, just google them.
After that, we learned about Pascal's Triangle. Pascal's Triangle was created by a French mathematician named Blaise Pascal. It is kinda hard to explain what it is...sorry. 
We also did some more polynomiography today. Here is some more:

This one is my brother's full name. (Mom show Dillon!)

This one is my mom's full name.

Some more random clicking.

That was the second day at Girl's Plus Math. Today was fun and I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

~Mallory~

Day One of Girls Plus Math!

Today was my first day at Girls Plus Math! Even though this is my second year here, I am still very happy to have this opportunity!
Today we talked about first notable female mathematician called Hypatia. She was born in the late 300s A.D. in Alexandria, Egypt. She studied in Athens, Italy. She was not like other women. She dressed like a scholar, she was into politics, and she drove her own chariot. Someone or some people thought she was a witch because of her different personality, and was brutally murdered in 415 A.D.
We also worked on Venn Diagrams, which are two or more circles put together that compare and contrast two or more things. We did some activities with Venn Diagrams. One activity we did involved groups of three. We had a Venn Diagram with three circles and we each compared and contrasted things about us. We also went to a website (the link is the highlighted 'Venn Diagrams') and sorted numbers in the appropriate category.
We also worked on something called sets. Sets are a collection of objects called elements. For instance, lets say group A has the numbers 1234, and you would like to make a set of the numbers. You would create something like this: A={1,2,3,4} I know it seems confusing, but eventually you understand it.
Then we learned about something call Polynomiography. It is a series of codes that creates pictures like the ones below.

My first name, which is the code 13z^3+1z^1-12z^8+12z^8-15z^6+18z^18-25z^7

I know, it does seem complicated.

This is my birthday.

This one is my full name.

I actually just did some random clicking and then this happened...it had a better outcome than I thought it would.

That was day one of Girls Plus Math! I'm excited to see what tomorrow brings!

~Mallory~