Back to the Future

This Math Project Would Catapault Me Back in Time...

Last night I received an unexpected text during the middle of the day.  It was from one of the youth that I work with in our ward congregation. I'll call him "Joey."

Joey:  Bro D.  I was wondering if you can help me with a math project tonight? (:
Me: Sure, what time?
Joey: Whatever time you can come  (:

I made it to Joey's house about 9 p.m.  The "math project" was for Joey's geometry class.  He was supposed to construct a mobile to display the "centroid" of all seven different types of triangles.

Do you know what a "centroid" is?  Neither did I.

Apparently, it is the exact center of the triangle such that the triangle will lay flat if it is balanced on that point.

Ok, all well and good, but I had no idea what the seven different types of triangles were either.  I mean, it's been since my freshman year in high school since I took Geometry--over 20 years ago!

Fortunately, we were able to figure out what the seven types of triangles are with the help of my Blackberry, Google, and (sadly) not much help from Chapter 4 of the Geometry book (where the answers were supposed to be!).

The project was to cut out each type of triangle from some material and then poke a hole in it and display it so that the triangle balanced perfectly.  The project urged the students to be creative in the materials that they used both for the triangles and in the other materials for the mobile.  It was very important to use a material for the triangles that would be durable to lay flat, so paper was obviously out.

Joey was going to cut up a cardboard box for the triangles.  I thought that that was a good idea for some, but suggested that we raid the fridge and sacrifice a plastic milk carton to use for cutting out some of the materials.

For the next hour or so, we cut, we measured, we protracted, and we poked holes in cardboard and plastic using the most rudimentary of tools including my pocket knife (The Scout Motto is Be Prepared!) and a pair of scissors.  The entire time, I lamented the absence of a decent protractor, exacto knife, drill, or pretty much any other tool in my garage that we might have used.

I finished tracing the triangles and identifying the centroid and left Joey to finish up...

As I left, I felt good that the project would get done and I thought that it wasn't half bad, considering that we didn't get started until 9 p.m. the night before it was due.  (which is something that I totally did all through high school, bytheway!)  However, I felt like there was so much more that we could have done and I really felt like a bit of a failure that I wasn't able to be more of a help and that if we had had a little more time, Joey's project could have been really, really cool.

Yes, "Joey", there is a Santa Clause!

So I called Joey today.  I wanted to see how the project turned out.  I braced myself for the bad news that my concerns about the inadequacies that I perceived would be true...

Joey told me that he had scored 200 points on the project....out of 200!  Yes, a perfect score!  His teacher loved the use of the plastic from the milk carton and was so impressed that she asked if she could hang it up in her classroom to display it!  It was a Christmas Miracle!

Joey was very pumped and told me that he had finished up the project after I had left by getting the string just right and that the triangles balanced just like they were supposed to from their centroid.  Great job Joey!!  Very impressive...

Now, if we could just figure out a way to get Joey to our Young Men's activity tomorrow night....  =o)