Upcycled cardboard and duct tape Roman meander tiles

As things began to shut down for Covid-19 precautions, and our planned Hornby Island labyrinth workshops needed to be postponed, I got busy cutting up a big Amazon delivery box into 12" X 12" tiles and turning 16 of them into diagonally-striped Roman meander modular components. It was a satisfying way to make some fairly sturdy upcycled manipulatives to play with in designing this kind of labyrinth!

I thought about the idea of making a large playground installation with larger tiles of this sort that could swivel to create new labyrinth patterns. But my neighbour Alex, who saw me experimenting with this idea, pointed out that closely-packed squares don't swivel well (or at all), and the tiles would have to pop up or down to do so.

Reuleaux triangles, on the other hand, do swivel beautifully, but they don't tile the plane. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eQaF6OmWKw> Hmmm, how to work out a solution to this design problem?

Workshop with our UBC EDCP 551 class (Math, Language, the Body & the Arts) in the UBC Orchard Garden March 12

We held our graduate class in the UBC Orchard Garden teaching and learning garden and experimented with aspects of mathematical thinking with labyrinth design:

• We tried out different 'seeds' for classical labyrinths, experimenting with keeping some things invariant and varying others, and predicting the resulting labyrinths.
• We tried creating asymmetrical seeds, with even or odd numbers of attachment points; joining attachment points more and less symmetrically; trying to create new star-shaped seeds, and more.
• We tried out our first set of striped tiles to create a Roman meander-type labyrinth, with interesting results! (The edges were tricky and might need some triangles...) 
• We accomplished the exciting Gardner's Double Appleton Labyrinth Dance on our sidewalk chalk labyrinth. (Follow link to video)

Workshop with Burnaby teachers on February 28 2020 Pro D

We had a wonderful workshop with Burnaby elementary and secondary teachers on Friday February 28 in the dance lab at Burnaby North Secondary School. Fifteen teachers and teacher librarians participated (about half from elementary and middle years and half from secondary). We introduced the historical and modern contexts of labyrinths, experimented with drawing and predicting the shapes of classical labyrinths from different seeds, made a large labyrinth on a 20' square large tarp, and successfully did the Gardner's Double Appleton Labyrinth Dance (with a few experimental moments, naturally)! (Follow link to video).

Many thanks to Burnaby Science and Math Coordinator Donna Morgan, and Pro D Coordinators including Mati Bernabei and Phil Byrne and all the participants for a satisfying and successful learning experience.