Trig – The oldest practical mathematics

"If You ask someone What trigonometry East, they will probably whisper something about angles, sides, the hypotenuses, And maybe a few odd acronyms they memorized long There is. This East pretty ignominious For A discipline that activated navigation through oceans And Ultimately through interplanetary space. »

It is A extract Since THE First of all chapter of Do Trigonometry, Build Your Path Since Triangles has Analytic Geometry, by Jane Horvath And Rich Cameron, My guests Today. Do Trigonometry East THE third mathematics book that Jane And Rich to have writing with We, THE previous books be Do Geometry And Do Calculation. (Do: Trignometry East available In THE Maker Shed as GOOD as other booksellers.)

I to want has to welcome Jane Horvath And Rich Cameron. SO Jane, say We A little little about What You are TO DO In This book.

Jane: This book agrees In between THE other two pretty a lot. Trigonometry East A interesting beast In THE study programme In that It is put different places by different people In different States And things as that, but It is fundamentally THE study of how TO DO You measure things has a few level. He come out of survey And a few roots that are very, very old And It is a few of THE the oldest practical mathematics Or THE the oldest maker mathematics, if You will.

Valley: Really?

Jane: He go back 2000 years of trying has figure out, how far far East that object on THE horizon And how big East that TREE? And East that guys It is manufacturing My House In fact TO DO he RIGHT? You can TO DO A plot of trigonometry with basically Nothing but A couple of The sticks if You to have thought he through. SO It is THE ultimate practical mathematics has It is most basic level.

Valley: Jane calls se A to recover rocket scientist. In that career, She work on spatialship headed has far planets. Her co author, Rich, has A very different background as A open source developer who is has been implied In 3D impression Since It is emergence In THE maker community. Together, they have come up with A path has teach mathematics using 3D models that turns mathematics In A hands on learning experience For students.

In This conversation, Jane And Rich talk about these 3D models, which You can't see, obviously, but I will put A link below has A companion article on THE Makezine. com website that will to show disabled all of these models.

Recently, Jane And Rich were In THE Bay Area has participate In A workshop For coaches implied In FIRST OF ALL Robotics. They to have coached And judge FIRST OF ALL competitions For enough A during.

Jane: FIRST OF ALL Robotics For people WHO don't do it know East A competitive robotics has A entire bunch of levels. But We work with a few high school level teams. And SO This was A, A First of all of It is kind gathering of all THE people WHO, uh, WHO work with teams. You know, trying has help them technically And, And managerially And all those things.

And SO he was Really something has, as someone put he, get together When You are not in competition against everyone. And see a few of THE wonderful, a few of THE Really wonderful teams up there In THE Bay Area. There is A couple of world class teams up there that he was amusing has see their dig And see how a lot they TO DO, In a few case, with very little.

Valley: Can You explain What THE aim of that workshop was, has bring people together?

Jane: Yeah. Teachers In general And robotics coaches In particular are kind of isolated, You know, they are has A given school, there can be only A Or two people WHO teach mathematics, say, And You don't do it get has collaborate with your colleagues very easily. And SO For robot the coaches, that go triple because There is A couple of dozen by city, maybe. It is very hard has find each other. What these people did just kind of word of mouth And said it would be be great if We all obtained together In person And put out A call For that And has their astonishment, they obtained people Since South America And East Side. They to have on 300 people, apparently, just purely word of mouth.

He was just interesting audience how people, solve THE challenges of TO DO competitive robotics And A plot of different environments. You Never get has talk has these people, unless You see them has competitions And SO You are running around because GOOD, It is competition, RIGHT? Good has just TO DO that And b...