Thursday, 24 August 2023 From animated movies to Rubik's cube: This year's 'Matematika je KUL' summer camp

We spent the last days of August in the company of young enthusiasts of mathematics, who participated in the summer camps Matematika je KUL. In this year's edition, 6 elementary and high school students joined us with a united desire to discover mathematical riddles.

During the lectures, which took place from 20 to 24 August at UP Famnit, the participants of the camp learned about the principles of animation and how virtual objects can be moved in computer graphics with the help of various curves, they tried their hand at the challenge of finding consensus, which in recent years has also emerged as a key pillar of decentralized technologies, e.g. blockchain technology (Blockchain). They faced the problem of finding the shortest distance on a given surface and touched on all the "little tricks" that can allow us to assemble a Rubik's Cube in less than a minute, 30 seconds, maybe even less than 10 seconds. They even learned about the human brain from a mathematical point of view.

Participants used the newly acquired knowledge in group workshops to prepare final products, which they presented to their parents on the last day of the camp.

The entertainment part was, of course, also taken care of. We hung out over various mind games and sports activities, visited the 54 meters high Bell Tower of Koper, also called the City Tower, and took a trip to the neighboring charming old fishing town of Izola.

UP FAMNIT organizes camps with the aim of popularizing mathematics, as we strive to show young people with examples from practice that these fields can be fun, interesting and, above all, useful. The participants who return to the camps are proof of the achieved purpose and success of the camps.