SIAM is hosting a large-scale Julia Robinson Math Festival on April 20th. Pictured is Texas State University's Student-led Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
Photo submitted by SIAM
Math is critical to most facets of everyday life. Math goes into the design of buildings, the creation of technology and, on an even larger scale, the laws of the universe. A Texas State University Club, the student-led Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, in partnership with the TXST Mathematics Department, will be hosting the Julia Robinson Math Festival at the San Marcos Public Library from 12 to 4 p.m. on April 20 to garner local interest in the field.
Abdullah Kamal, TXST SIAM liaison, said this festival is not your typical math event but a vibrant celebration that will showcase the fun and applicability of mathematics in our daily lives. The festival also aims to bridge the gap between the university and the local community. Through engaging activities and interactive exhibits, SIAM hopes to demonstrate that math is more than just a subject — it's an integral part of the world.
“Our mission is to bridge the gap between mathematics and industry, so technology, computer science and engineering,” Kamal said. “We try to bring speakers to come talk about how they use mathematics in their jobs and daily lives. We’re trying to improve people’s awareness of mathematics.”
Kamal said the Julia Robinson Math Festival is a nonprofit organization that hosts math festivals around the country, and TXST SIAM is partnering with that organization to host one in San Marcos.
“The Julia Robinson Math Festival's main mission is to bring a fun math event environment to the attendees,” Kamal said. “We’re also going to have a bunch of the math organizations from TXST join us, so we can display to the community what TXST has to offer for people interested in math.”
The event will include various games and challenges. Kamal said one of the games that will be at the event is Cup Stacking and the premise is that there is a line of different colored cups and the player must stack all of the cups together.
“Each cup motion that you do, you have to increase the spaces between the cups movement each time. So when you have a single cup, the first cup you’re able to move, you can move it one space, and the next cup you have to move it two spaces and so on. The idea is to figure out the math that would go into stacking all of these cups,” Kamal said, adding that four or five cups is really easy but ten to twelve cups gets really complicated. “These are the types of games we’re trying to have at our festival. Basically games that could be really easy for young people but could also be a lot more complicated and give people the opportunity to think about where math is used in very simple applications.”
There will be booths with activities by participating organizations: Math Club, MathWorks, Pi Mu Epsilon and Bobcat Racing. Kamal said this event serves a variety of ages from Pre-K to adults.
“We’ll have the College of Science and Engineering themselves coming, so they’ll talk about the opportunities in general in the STEM department at Texas State University,” Kamal said. “Bobcat Racing will be there, and they’ll be showcasing their racecar simulation.”
Kamal said SIAM invited Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse and the TXST College of Science and Engineering Dean Barrett Bryant as well as San Marcos Mayor Jane Hughson.
SIAM does weekly events at the university.
“We invite guest speakers from different universities. We’ve had them come from Michigan State and we plan on having them come from UT Austin. We have a lot of Texas State faculty speak,” Kamal said. “We also do workshops about information for different technology that’s useful if you’re going into the industry and just different life skills when you’re looking for a job, things like that.”
Follow the club on instagram @siamtxst.
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