Hexaflexagons

Hallo everyone!

 So today I decided as I math project to make a "How to make Hexaflexagons" thing.
 But what is a Hexaflexagon, you say? A Hexaflexagon is the coolest, awesomest, most amazing thing ever! It's a piece of paper in the shape of a Hexagon that you can flex! They are so much fun.
 I found out about them from the mathmusician Vi Hart. She has such a huge amount of cool maths stuff! I noticed, however, that if one wanted to make a Hexaflexagon from her videos, it is a little difficult. So I've tried to make easy-to-follow instructions for people.

 Vi Hart's pages: (2025- sadly no longer available, but if you google her there are some remnants around).

 Vi Hartl's Youtube
 Vi Hart's website
Vi Hart's Soundcloud



                   How to make a Hexaflexagon


  Tools:

• Paper 
• Sicissors
• Stickytape
• pencil
• felt tip pens
• Ruler

Take the ruler and measure two centimeters from the longest side of the paper.  Cut it out, so that you are left with a long strip of paper. 

 

 Fold the paper on an angle to make an Equilateral triangle. You can then use it as a guide, and continue until all the paper is a nice happy fold of bouncy triangles. :)

 When you have done that, you are now up to making it into the Hexagon shape!



Unfold the triangles. They should look like the ones to the right. Once you've
done that you can fold them into the Hexagon shape. See the images below:

Once you have your ten nice equilateral triangles in the shape of a hexagon,you can cut off the others and glue/stickytape the paper together. 

 It is now officially a Hexaflexagon! All you need to do is colour it and get flexing!

So in the images above you can see that I've coloured one side, "flexed" it, coloured the second side, "flexed" it again and then coloured the third side. When it was flexed the third time we came back to colour one again - side one.

The Hexaflexagon Safety guide:   Safety Guide

If you really love Hexaflexagons, consider holding a party! Click here.

 I hope this is clear, and that many people enjoy the use of Hexaflexagons!!

Tidbits

We're back into school work, after a couple of weeks break, and so far we're all quite enjoying it.  Particularly given that we only have a short term again this time. 

Willow has been working on finishing her slippers- here's her first one.

 She's also just finished off some geography and is now onto her last block of history for the year.  Part of the block involves making paper rose windows, so it will be interesting to see how they come out.

Gabriel is working through his block on ancient Greece- we're almost at the end now.  As usual Class 5 history has been lots of fun- there are so many great stories and activities that can be done.  We're currently reading the Golden Fleece by Padraic Colum.

Over the break, Gabriel and Willow spent some time at City Farm.  Willow was a leader for the week, helping assist the younger children with activities, as well as doing some- she brought home some lovely spearmint soap and Gabriel went along for a day.  This time he focused on doing woodwork.  Here's some of his work.

We were also out and about quite a bit during the break, catching up with friends and attending a puppet show in Fremantle. Just before the break, we also went to a ballet performance of Pinocchio, so of course we are now reading it too.  It's quite different to the Disney version, but a great story all the same.

A friend recently shared a mathemetician's you tube page with us, and we've all been quite engaged with it.  Recently she's been demonstrating hexaflexagons, and so we've been busy making them.

Here's her page.

https://vimeo.com/vihart

Fibonacci and Geometric Doodling

A friend posted this on facebook recently- and it took us on a mathematical doodle journey.  It's just wonderful for all sorts of geometrical patterns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahXIMUkSXX0&feature=youtu.be

-

2025

I believe that this was a link to Vi Hart's youtube channel which now seems to have gone.  If you do a search a few of her things still come up, but most of them are now gone.  The whole family were huge Vi Hart fans, and Willow was inspired to do some interesting geometric maths thanks to Vi.

Willow's hexaflexagons.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2014/05/hexaflexagons.html

Willow's Tau Pie.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/search?q=pi

Doodles.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2019/08/term-2-highlights.htm

More hexaflexagons.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2020/09/term-2-lockdown-and-winter-solstice.html

After some more searching I have discovered that Vi Hart moved to vimeo.  This is a really amazing resource for art/maths/music.  She covered quite a diverse range of areas in her mathematical doodlings.
https://vimeo.com/vihart

Whilst trying to find out what had happened to her and her work I discovered that her Dad works in geometric sculptural designs and he has some interesting resources too.

https://www.georgehart.com/