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Recent Publications

Peer-reviewed published articles

Modeling Dynamical Systems for 3D Printing

Stephan Lucas, Evelyn Sander, and Laura Taalman
Notices of the American Mathematical Society, submitted 2020

Wallpaper Patterns for Lattice Designs

Laura Taalman and Carolyn Yackel
Bridges Aalto Proceedings, to appear 2020

Optimizing Morton’s Knots for Rolling

Abigail Eget, Stephen Lucas, and Laura Taalman
Bridges Aalto Proceedings, to appear 2020

Opportunity costs in the game of best choice

Madeline Crews, Brant Jones, Kaitlyn Myers, Laura Taalman, Michael Urbanski, and Breeann Wilson
Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, Volume 26, Issue #1, 2019

Sequences of Spiral Knot Determinants

Ryan Stees and Laura Taalman
Journal of Integer Sequences, Volume 19, Issue #1, 2016

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Courses

Current classes at James Madison University

Calculus with Functions I

MATH 231, Fall 2020
STEM Calculus with Integrated Precalculus
Online Sections 001, 003, 007, and 0012

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Labs

Learning spaces at James Madison University

JMU Math MakerLab

3D printing for student research and faculty support

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Presentations

Talks at conferences and events

Making Math Real: Knot Theory

MAA Distinguished Carriage House Lecture

Knot Theory, Experimental Math, & 3D Printing

Math Encounters Public Lecture at MoMath

Menger, Menger, Menger

5-minute talk at Gathering for Gardner G4G10

Printing Perfect Pentagons

5-minute talk at Gathering for Gardner G4G13

→ See all talks

HACKTASTIC

A blog about design, math, and failure

July 31, 2020

10 Quick Tips for Building an Interactive Math Course in Canvas

10 Quick Tips for Building an Interactive Math Course in Canvas https://mathgrrl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/screenshot55.jpg 1906 1452 mathgrrl mathgrrl https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/de00911e0a27aa527aae53a60fc5b663?s=96&d=retro&r=g July 31, 2020 July 31, 2020

Fall semester is coming and you’re teaching online… let’s pause for a small scream 😭

Next year we’ll all be experts and there will be no end of talks, papers, and blog posts that we can use to figure out what to do. But right now we need the quick and dirty. What can we do NOW, and fast, to make our online math course content more interactive and engaging? If you’re getting ready to teach math online and your school’s LMS is Canvas, here are 10 quick tips to get you rolling.

July 25, 2020

Fitted Face Mask for People Who Aren’t Great at Sewing

Fitted Face Mask for People Who Aren’t Great at Sewing https://mathgrrl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/IMG_4724-scaled.jpg 2560 1920 mathgrrl mathgrrl https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/de00911e0a27aa527aae53a60fc5b663?s=96&d=retro&r=g July 25, 2020 August 9, 2020

Over the past weeks I’ve iterated mask designs many times, acquired a bunch of sewing supplies, and learned from a lot of online patterns and videos. This mask design has a sewn-in nose wire, elastic loops that go all the way around your head, a filter sewn inside the mask, and minimal exposed seams. It’s washable and reversible, so you can decide which side is the outside after you’re done sewing it, or each time you wash it.

May 28, 2020

Using LaTeX with the New Canvas Quiz Engine

Using LaTeX with the New Canvas Quiz Engine https://mathgrrl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screen-Shot-2020-05-28-at-6.08.50-PM234.jpg 800 601 mathgrrl mathgrrl https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/de00911e0a27aa527aae53a60fc5b663?s=96&d=retro&r=g May 28, 2020 May 30, 2020

Okay. Deep breath. It’s time to start figuring out how to teach online… I mean, how to do Actually Do It Well, not just as an emergency solution thrown together over a frenzied and sleepless week. There is a lot to work to do, so let’s start with something small: online math quizzes. In this post we’ll walk through how to use LaTeX typesetting in both the new and legacy Canvas quiz engines.

September 5, 2019

Laser Cutting from a 3D File

Laser Cutting from a 3D File https://mathgrrl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/IMG_3030.jpg 640 480 mathgrrl mathgrrl https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/de00911e0a27aa527aae53a60fc5b663?s=96&d=retro&r=g September 5, 2019 September 20, 2019

To make files for laser cutting, you need two-dimensional information. You could download a picture from the internet, draw something yourself, or create an image in a program like Illustrator or Inkscape. In this post we’ll walk through the process of creating a 2D-laser-cuttable SVG file from a 3D-printable STL file using the free online in-browser modeling program Tinkercad.

August 1, 2019

Origami Press #2: Yoshizawa Butterfly

Origami Press #2: Yoshizawa Butterfly https://mathgrrl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/IMG_2781-1.jpg 2016 1512 mathgrrl mathgrrl https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/de00911e0a27aa527aae53a60fc5b663?s=96&d=retro&r=g August 1, 2019 August 1, 2019

Our second origami press is a helper for folding a beautiful and elegant butterfly model designed by Akira Yoshizawa. One of the final folds of this butterfly model pulls the paper together past its natural fold line, which is what creates the organic, curvy shape of the finished model. This press enables the folder to make this crucial fold very cleanly and thus produces a more reliable butterfly model…

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