Real World Math

[kirby urner]

Anchoring Real World Math

As I was remarking over Indian buffet with 

Chairman Steve today **, there's a tradition in 

AP computer science of presenting students 

with a fairly well developed challenge in a 

given knowledge domain, and investigating 

it in some depth.  

I believe the standard Advanced Placement course 

used Java, maybe still does.  I forget what the 

project was about.

I'm interested in doing something similar by 

describing a social institution the purpose of 

which is to recover food that's going to waste

and to feed it to those in need.  

Surplus food still in a highly edible state, going 

to landfill and compost is an endemic underside 

of the urban ecosystem that avoids scrutiny in 

the absence of solutions.  Here we have a solution.

http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/board-games.html

People in strong physical health need reasons,

other than gym exercises, to stay fit.  Many 

ride bicycles for entertainment.  In this model,

we harness that energy and use a dispatching 

system to alert team members to food pickup

opportunities.  The pickups and drop offs are

somewhat finely tuned in real time, as the goal

is to turn waste into fine meals and free goods

for the households, not to bike rotting veggies

around town only to have them rot in some 

neighborhood dumpster for lack of coordination.

The mathematics enters in on many levels,

starting with a systems level approach to a

city in an agricultural setting, needing daily

supply.  Analogies between packet switching

and truck routing are apparent in 'Warriors of

the Net', long a favorite with my Saturday 

Academy students.

http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2008/05/sa-classnotes-200853.html

Real time control means feedback, GPS, video

streaming and archiving.  I'm not suggesting every

school immediately has access to such an equipment

library (St. David of Wales has a tool library, but 

so far we're just using the kitchen, maybe some

storage space).

Our current operation has only sporadic 

GPS and makes only minimal use of SQL.  The

cooking sessions are not video recorded in studio

and local schools are not served.  We're just a 

small version with a park-based interface.  The 

bikes show up pulling trailers with prepared food.

People line up, bringing their own bowls and 

utensils (at least according to the model) and

fill up.

Network topology and graph theory.  Elements

of Supermarket Math.**  I'm impressed by this 

manga based approach to databases as suitable

and have plans to suggest it as "bus reading" to

at least one student-commuter.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/5988218440/in/set-72157627166240377

(Manga guide to databases)

Kirby

** Steve Holden, holdenweb.com

Digital Math:

   Supermarket Math:  web, inventory, sql, tcp/ip, upc, unicode, pricing, budgeting, supplying, consuming, energy transformations, geography

   Casino Math:     probability, statistics, history of games, randomness, tribal casino operations, game theory, quantum theory, cryptography

   Neolithic Math:  navigation, geodesy, mythographic encodings, civilizations and their tools, survival skills

   Martian Math:  terraforming Earth (conscious planning), geodesic spheres, crystallography made simpler, science fiction, forecasting tomorrow

http://wikieducator.org/Digital_Math

[mok...@earthtreasury.org]

On Tue, August 9, 2011 6:30 pm, kirby urner wrote:
> Anchoring Real World Math
>
> As I was remarking over Indian buffet with
> Chairman Steve today **, there's a tradition in
> AP computer science of presenting students
> with a fairly well developed challenge in a
> given knowledge domain, and investigating
> it in some depth.
>
> I believe the standard Advanced Placement course
> used Java, maybe still does.

I consider the imposition of a standard language in AP reprehensible,
particularly when it is a language that fails to provide a consistent
Computer Science model for computation. My view is that you do not
understand programming if you can't do it in LISP, APL, FORTH, and
Smalltalk. Each is consistently based on a mathematical model of
programming (Lambda calculus, functional programming, threaded code, OOP).
Everything else is a poor relation.

* BASIC isn't. It is the cultural equivalent of Roman numerals.
** Same for FORTRAN (Formula Translator)
** COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language)
** Perl (Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister)

* Scheme and Logo are in the LISP family.

* J is an APL with even more functional programming facilities.

* Any kind of bytecode is within the extended FORTH family.

* Java and C++ are not genuinely object-oriented.

* We can discuss Python, which has
** some of the array capabilities of APL in NumPy and SciPy
** a version of object-oriented programming
** list capabilities
** compilation to bytecode

This is very similar to the tiffin-wallah system in Mumbai, which has also
been compared favorably with packet switching. Just the other way around.
Food is prepared and placed in labeled tiffin (lunch) containers at a
multitude of households along the train lines out of Mumbai. Stacks of
tiffin containers are placed on local trains to go to a central
"switching" center in Mumbai, where the containers are sorted and
restacked in delivery order for each tiffin-wallah route for delivery on
bicycle. An astonishing number of tiffins are delivered each day, with an
astonishingly low error rate on fulfilling what was order and delivering
on time. Orders are then fed back in reverse, ending up at homes where the
cook specializes in that dish.

There are also great similarities with the FedEx and UPS systems. The
FedEx central hub in Memphis is in the spacetime center of the continental
US, allowing for time zone differences.

> http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2008/05/sa-classnotes-200853.html
>
> Real time control means feedback, GPS, video
> streaming and archiving. I'm not suggesting every
> school immediately has access to such an equipment
> library (St. David of Wales has a tool library, but
> so far we're just using the kitchen, maybe some
> storage space).

There have been projects using One Laptop Per Child XOs on wheeled carts
as robots. XOs have video cameras built in. There are USB GPS receivers
for about $20. Talk to us about whatever you want to do.

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>

--
Edward Mokurai
(默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر
ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

[kirby]

On Aug 9, 7:35 pm, moku...@earthtreasury.org wrote:
> On Tue, August 9, 2011 6:30 pm, kirby urner wrote:
> > Anchoring Real World Math
>
> > As I was remarking over Indian buffet with
> > Chairman Steve today **, there's a tradition in
> > AP computer science of presenting students
> > with a fairly well developed challenge in a
> > given knowledge domain, and investigating
> > it in some depth.
>
> > I believe the standard Advanced Placement course
> > used Java, maybe still does.

Here's some more recent writing on the more rural
(less city based) side of the futuristic math (STEM)
curriculum I've developing with my peers.

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2011-August/010414.html
(apologies for the messed formatting in the top half).

Links back to here. There's a also a pointer to this thread
from the Wittgenstein list:

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2011/08/fnb-2011811.html
(second paragraph:
My philosophical remarks have been routed and filed. The Internet
works well. )

Kirby

[mok...@earthtreasury.org]

On Sat, August 13, 2011 2:09 pm, kirby wrote:
> On Aug 9, 7:35�pm, moku...@earthtreasury.org wrote:
>> On Tue, August 9, 2011 6:30 pm, kirby urner wrote:
>> > Anchoring Real World Math
>>
>> > As I was remarking over Indian buffet with
>> > Chairman Steve today **, there's a tradition in
>> > AP computer science of presenting students
>> > with a fairly well developed challenge in a
>> > given knowledge domain, and investigating
>> > it in some depth.
>>
>> > I believe the standard Advanced Placement course
>> > used Java, maybe still does.
>
> Here's some more recent writing on the more rural
> (less city based) side of the futuristic math (STEM)
> curriculum I've developing with my peers.
>
> http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2011-August/010414.html
> (apologies for the messed formatting in the top half).

Would you and they like to try out the booki server for Replacing
Textbooks at Sugar Labs?

http://booki.treehouse.su/

Then we can discuss getting it to the more rural of our 2 million+
children in dozens of languages.

> Links back to here. There's a also a pointer to this thread
> from the Wittgenstein list:
>
> http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2011/08/fnb-2011811.html
> (second paragraph:
> My philosophical remarks have been routed and filed. The Internet
> works well. )
>
> Kirby
>

[kirby urner]

> Would you and they like to try out the booki server for Replacing
> Textbooks at Sugar Labs?
>
> http://booki.treehouse.su/

I have two XOs around, not sure what either is running at the moment
as neither is in my office.

Mike D has one, Lindsey the other. Are these necessary for the booki server?

Kirby

[mok...@earthtreasury.org]

No. FLOSS Manuals created the booki software under GPL for anyone to write
Free Software manuals,

http://booki.flossmanuals.net/

including OPLC XO and Sugar Manuals, and Sugar Labs taken a copy for its
Replacing Textbooks program. The two servers support collaborative
authoring, editing, and translation of books and e-learning materials.
Where we have sufficiently knowledgeable subject matter experts, and can
bring in artists, editors, and others as needed, we have been able to
create a book in a week, from bare outline to print-on-demand publishing.

Even if you want to present your math using Sugar Software, you can use
any system that runs VirtualBox to host your development work. After that,
XOs are excellent for testing for memory size, screen size and resolution,
performance, storage requirements, and so on. Some activities,
particularly those using the sound port and the video camera and mic, work
better on the XO.

We have Don Cohen The Mathman doing Calculus By and For Young People, and
other topics coming in.