Angry Birds

I stumbled upon nets that make up into Angry Birds and even though I've never played the game, I was pretty excited. There just isn't enough maths that is cute!

The program for my year 10 class included constructing solids from nets, so I figured it may as well be a bit more fun and interesting. Here are the cute little guys above my whiteboards:

 

I also challenged them to take a blank net and draw their own cute animal design on it. They seemed amused by my stance that the world needs more cute maths.

I was wondering whether I was going too far off course with this idea, and as I thought about it I decided it has a lot of merit. To design on the net something that will look correct when folded up requires a kind of visualisation and spacial reasoning, and even choosing what solid shape will best suit your design idea is significant. So that prepares me for a year 7 lesson for later in the year!