The first set of egg boxes are complete and I have photos!
I'm going to reflect on the project as a whole in another post, but for the time being I thought I'd assume the role of artistic director of the gallery and give you a guided tour. I've put in a selection of designs from top and middle sets. I haven't got a picture of any work from the lower set groups, but I have seen a couple of really nicely decorated cubes and cuboids from them.
(N.B. My tongue is now firmly in my cheek)
1. Untitled
On the left here we have what is considered to be the pre-eminent piece in the collection from two of our gifted and talented artists. The talented duo who created it declined to name the work, but at the gallery we have chosen to refer to it as "Possibly the head of a panda princess?" A great deal of skill went into the production of this piece and the artists should be commended for their ingenuity in creating the spherical shape. They were also highly commended for their excellent research skills which enabled them to look up the formulas for the surface area of each section.
2. Bright Yellow Rabbit with Oversized Teeth and Cavernous Eyes
This is the work of another one of our most distinguished artistic duos. The work encourages us to reflect on the contrast between the jaunty yellow colour that dominates the head of the rabbit and the deep black colour used for the creature's eyes. Again, this pair of artists were highly successful in calculating the surface area of each section of the work, not forgetting the ears.
3. Chateau de l'Oeuf (unfinished)
This ambitious work was sadly unfinished as the artists had to run to their next lesson, but one can get a sense for the scope of their design by this partially completed exhibit. This exemplifies a trend in some of the middle set groups towards creating "buildings" for their eggs. Judges were particularly impressed by their use of the formula 3/4 x pi x radius squared, for the cone shaped turrets, which were made using 3/4 of a circle.
4. The Eggcitement of Easter
This egg-box design, showing a rabbit in open-mouthed delight as it is about to consume a chocolate egg, encapsulates the joy of the Easter season. Although they had never been taught how to calculate the correct dimensions when designing the net of the cylinder, this group should be particularly appluaded for their "can-do" attitude and problem solving approach. When discussing how to work out the length of the rectangular part of the net, the group realised that it had to be the same as the circumference of the circle, but they had not been taught a formula to work this out. Instead, they took a piece of string and used that to measure the circumference of the circle. Ingenious!
5. The Nodding Rabbit
This design demonstrates that sometimes simpler is better. The group used 2 cubes, attached with a piece of card at the back. Viewers in the gallery are encouraged to interact with this exhibit by tapping the head of the rabbit, which bobs up and down. Although not particularly ambitious from a mathematical point of view, this is a much valued contribution to the gallery and will be used as a model to inspire future generations of artists, especially those who are less confident.
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As artistic director, this is my personal favourite in the gallery. Again, the acutal net is not particularly mathematically adventurous (it is a cuboid) but who could fail to love an egg box covered in cotton wool and made to look like a sheep?
7. Egg-Barn
Our guided tour concludes with a very accomplished piece of work from two artists who have made fantastic progress this year. Not content with a simple cuboid shape, the pair decided to construct a triangular prism for the roof of their Egg Barn. They realised that the length of the triangle had to be the same as the length of the corresponding side of the rectangles in the net. With some assistance from their artistic director, they were guided to experiement with using compasses to construct inter-secting arcs to find the third vertex of each triangle.Once they had mastered the technique, the artists became experts in their field and showed another group how to do it.
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