Einstein Mad Hat Competition – for students and parents!
Two leading maths organisations, the United Kingdom Mathematics Trust (UKMT) in Leeds, England and the National Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) in New York City, announced a joint competition to celebrate the discovery of the Hat Tile, an “Einstein” or aperiodic monotile, a shape which can tile the plane but can only do so non-periodically (in a non-repeating pattern).
The famous Penrose tiles are a pair of shapes which together do the same thing, but the Hat Tile is a shape which does the job by itself. See here Aperiodic Monotile for the paper and here for an animation showing that the hat is just one of an infinite family of newly-discovered Einsteins The Hat animation.
This mathematical discovery solves what was commonly believed to be an impossible challenge in patterning. In celebration of this exciting discovery, the UK Mathematics Trust and MoMath are hosting a competition to highlight the creativity of mathematics, the Einstein Mad HAT Contest.
The competition is now open and will run until 11.59pm 15 October 2023 BST. You are invited to submit your renditions of the Hat and Spectre tiles. Submissions highlighting the connections between mathematics, art, design, and catering are encouraged.
All entries must be submitted via Einstein Mad HAT Competitions.
The competition will involve four broad categories:
- Useful things
- Useless things
- Physical creations
- Non-physical designs
Examples of submissions might include (but are not limited to):
- Drawings
- Fiber arts
- Baked goods
- Actual hats
- Soccer balls
- Ceramic tile
There are two competitions offering circa £16,000 in total awards:
- The Scholastic Einstein Mad Hat Competition: This competition is for students at UK secondary schools. A scholarship will be awarded to one winner who is currently enrolled inhigh school, secondary school, or equivalent. The scholarship will be applied towards tuition at an accredited college or university.
- The Global Einstein Mad Hat Competition: This competition will award a cash prize to one adult winner. The adult winner must be 18 years of age or older and must not be enrolled in high school, secondary school, or equivalent.
Competition Detail
This competition is to allow people to explore creative uses of the hat and spectre monotiles. All entries must use a mathematically correct form of the tiling.
Entrants are encouraged to make their own rendition of the Hat Tiling. This could be a drawing, ceramic tiles, fibre arts, actual hat, baked goods, or even soccer balls.
To date we have seen a Hat Tiling design dress, technical and artistic drawings, a Hat Tiling shaped hat, as well as animations, and computer graphics. However people wish to use the Hat Tiling to make their own rendition, we will be delighted to receive all entries.
Only two pupils entries per school are permitted. Please send your entries to Mrs K Brown by Thursday 12 October and the Maths department will decide the entries/
Mrs K Brown
Subject Leader - Mathematics