Assignment 1 - Group Documentation

Members: Sissie He, Ross Kagna, Tiffany Williams

Original artwork: Fabric Hexaflexagon by Jill Borcherd

We chose this art work because we thought it would look visually appealing to the kids and would be easy for the kids to recreate with their own twist on it. For example, for us, we tried to make it our own by choosing different patterned fabrics for each face (Tiffany was especially proud of the side with apples and oranges because my friend made a joke earlier that week about comparing apples and oranges!). We also used fabrics Sissie already had, which might make for a good project on upcycling fabrics for the kids to find materials they already have but that might have gone unused and forgotten otherwise. Other than fabrics, papers, stickers, or other materials might also be used, as long as they are thin and gluable. 

We first started by making samples using paper. This first sample got beaten up pretty quickly as Ross was mapping out the sequences. In this first sample, we had to make sure our trig (!) ratios were right for our equilateral triangles, which might serve as a warm-up reminder of what the kids might already know about trig for us to evaluate how familiar they are with trig concepts (ie. the 2 to sqrt3 ratio). 

Here are some other samples we made, both for ourselves and for our peers to play with:

Sissie made the brown paper samples for the interactive activity of our peers playing with the faces and trying to figure out Tuckerman’s Traverse—the fastest way of getting to all 6 faces by mapping out the sequences of the faces they get to. We hoped this would be a gentle introduction for the kids! 

A struggle we initially encountered as a group was finding specific instructions to the strip of triangles that the kids would be able to follow and understand; we were kind of just folding it until it looked right at the beginning! Ross was folding it a bunch of times to work this out.

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Then, for the replication of the artwork, Sissie found a strip of fabric, on which we pasted the different patterned fabrics for the various 6 faces. Since the orientation of the faces mattered, we wanted to be thoughtful in choosing which patterns we used for each of the 6 faces, and careful in the way we glued them to the longer strip of fabric. For example, in the mapping of the faces, since 1, 2, and 3 occur the most frequently, we chose to focus on making the patterns for those the most visually elaborate and interesting. 

We used lace, floral, and polka dots for Face #1, apples and oranges for Face #2, and apples and gingham for Face #3. Then, we laid them out to make sure they looked appealing. After experimenting with a sample on which we drew different coloured stars to determine the correct orientation of each equilateral triangle on the long strip of paper, we carefully stuck the patterned fabrics in the correct position on the long fabric strip. After this, we folded the long fabric strip, as we had done with the paper samples! And we were done!