Beyond the Classroom was launched by the Department of Mathematics at Ohio State University and the STEAM Factory in the summer of 2018. This non-‐residential program ran from July 9 to July 27 at the STEAM Factory premises. The participants, a group of young women from several local high schools, were given the opportunity to build confidence in their math and programming abilities and to develop a deeper understanding of a variety of topics including mathematical and algorithmic reasoning.
For the workshops we used the Python Turtle and Sonic Pi programs that allow one to draw and compose music with code. The topics of the workshops were:
- Prime numbers
- Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio. Drawing a Fibonacci sequence. Fibonacci primes.
- ROT-13 Cipher
- Synthesizer sounds and loops
- Randomness in composing music
- The computer as a musical instrument
- Drawing the Sierpinski triangle and M-pointed stars
- Modular arithmetic
- Functions, variables and data types in Python
On the last week, the teams fully worked on their projects with the guidance of the instructors. By the end of the camp, the teams presented their projects to their families. The names of the projects were:
- Magic carpet fractal
- Sonatina on Sonic Pi and Ying-Yang fractal
- Mozart piece on Sonic Pi and random pointed stars
- The Duck Song on Sonic Pi
We would like to express our gratitude to Prof. Bill Husen, for his leadership and support throughout this project. We would also like to thank Cody McNulty, systems manager of the Math Department for his help with the technological resources, as well as to Charlene Brenner, project coordinator of the STEAM Factory, for providing such a welcoming experience to the whole group. A special thank you to the Math Advisory Board for their support to this project.
The organizers and instructors: Erika Roldan, Rachel Karpman, Feride Tiglay, Debi Stout, and Maritza Sirvent.