APS Students Participate in Creation of Record-Breaking Fractal Triangle

To volunteer to help with the project or for more information, visit the Fractal Foundation’s website.

Educators can also get lesson plans on fractals from the website.

Know what fractals are? Lots of APS kids do. And on Sunday, March 14, the fractal drawings they created will become part of the largest fractal triangle ever made. In fact, they’re hoping to set a Guinness World Book record.

Fractals are never-ending patterns made up of smaller versions of themselves. They are spectacular to look at, can be defined through mathematical equations, and are found in nature – trees, rivers, clouds, seashells, even hurricanes – making them combinations of art, math and science.

Students around the state have been learning about fractals through the Fractal Foundation, a non-profit organization that uses the beauty of fractals to inspire interest in science, math, and art.

Students from more than a dozen APS schools worked with the Foundation on creating many of the 2,187 fractal triangles that will be assembled this weekend to break the world record.

Volunteers will gather beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday (which happens to be Pi Day since pi=3.14) at the Albuquerque Convention Center Westside ballroom (map) to help build the triangle, which will be 96 feet wide. They hope to certify the world record and take a group picture of as many students as they can squeeze into the fractal at 3:14 p.m.