Figure 2

Our plans for the 16th annual Fractal Fair at Weston High School looked good. All was supposed to go smoothly, just as the previous 15 fairs had. Why not, after all?

Figure 1

But the weather did not cooperate. The original date was snowed out, as school was closed all day.

Figure 3

On the rescheduled date we did have school, but snow started at mid-day, so all evening activities were canceled. Sigh.

Figure 4

The eventual compromise was to have five mini fractal fairs, one in each Honors Precalculus section, so no student had to miss a class in another subject. Everything went well in the end, even though we were sorely lacking guests — such as teachers from other departments, community members, and (especially) parents of the students presenting. You can get some idea of the range of topics by exploring the selection of photos scattered through this post.

Figure 5

Figure 6

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Figure 10

Figure 11

You may be wondering about that peculiar squiggly wire next to a radio (Figure 6). That project (not from my class) was part of a project done by three juniors who took the initiative to get in touch with Dr. Nathan Cohen, who invented the fractal antenna and founded Fractal Antenna Systems. Dr. Cohen generously showed them around his company and explained why fractal antennas are powerful and important. Other projects ranged from fractals in music (Figure 10) to coding computer programs to create original fractals (Figure 2) to explanations of fractals found in nature (Figures 1, 3, 5, 9, and 11).

Categories: Math, Teaching & Learning, Weston