Tatjana Van Steenbergen Bergeron is a high school pupil who did an internship in the Department of Mathematics beside Prof. Dr. Antonella Perucca, Associate Professor in Mathematics and its Didactics. Together with Postdoc Francesco Grotto, they investigated the mathematics behind the toy called Rubik’s Snake. Moreover, Master Students Bruno Carvalho da Veiga and Alex Schammo considered how to present this topic as a mathematical investigation for high-school pupils.
The outcome of the internship is a preprint. The results concern the planar configurations of the snake toy, for example the team understood the minimal number of moves requested to construct a configuration starting from the straight snake and classified the convex shapes that can be produced.
“It is possible to do research in recreational mathematics with high-school pupils. The most difficult part is finding a suitable topic, which is interesting and accessible at the same time” says Antonella Perucca.
“It was a fun geometric and combinatorial topic for a probabilistic and a number theorist to work together” says Francesco Grotto.
Tatjana shared her experience and thoughts about the internship, specially her likes and challenges.
How did you experience your internship?
I had a great experience with my internship. I acquired a lot of new knowledge and learned a lot of new mathematics. I learned new vocabulary and new mathematical methods to solve problems. In addition, the staff was really nice and made sure I was included in everything. In general, this internship was a great experience.
What did you like the most about your internship?
What I liked most about the internship was the atmosphere and the cooperation within the department of mathematics. It was a very welcoming atmosphere for an outsider and I also had a great experience with cooperation with other members of the department.
What were the challenges you experienced?
The biggest challenge for me was understanding the math. At the beginning, I had a lot of difficulties to understand what we were working on, there was a lot of vocabulary I had not seen yet, but with time and the right explanations I came to understand everything.
The full article is available here