Digital education
The official opening of The Week of Mathematics: top billing given to the Louis 14.0 project
Date:
Changed on 07/05/2020
As a partner of The Week of Mathematics, the Inria Bordeaux - Sud-Ouest centre was an active participant at the open day organised by the Académie de Bordeaux at the Talence university campus. With play decided as the theme for this year’s event, participants were given a rich and varied programme of activities.
Building bridges between mathematics and daily life
The concept behind The Week of Mathematics was to give pupils from primary schools, middle schools and secondary schools a modern, vibrant and attractive image of mathematics as a discipline. Each year, the aim is to raise awareness of the cultural side of mathematics by showing the vital role it has played throughout history and in our daily lives. This event also presents an opportunity to showcase the range of professions in which mathematics plays a key role, in addition to the many ties linking mathematics to other disciplines, whether in science, technology or the arts. With this in mind, the Académie de Bordeaux gave carte blancheto Juliette Chabassier, research fellow within the Magique 3Dproject team, who introduced the best part of 210 primary and secondary school pupils to the Louis 14.0 project during its opening day on 12th March at the University of Bordeaux.
When mathematics and music come together
Lasting an hour and a half, this “conference show” explored how mathematics and IT can be used to virtually restore musical instruments, with an opportunity to hear historical instruments modelled during a musical performance. The show began with a fun, interactive presentation explaining the phenomena of wave propagation and plate resonance, with pupils from St Michel de Castelnau primary school called up on stage to participate in the Chladni plates experiment for a concrete illustration. There was then a demonstration featuring a harpsichord virtually restored using the software Pianoteq before an opportunity to hear it in a musical context as part of the performance “Les jupons de Versailles”. After exploring how a computer could be used to calculate the sound of an instrument, the second part focused on using the technology for artistic purposes, with the ensemble, Les Précieuses, made up of six musicians and an actor, describing a day in the life of Louis XIV through the eyes of the women around him.
Let’s play together...at mathematics
The day continued with a games event organised on the Talence university campus, coordinated by a number of partners brought together for the occasion. Inria introduced primary 6, first year and second year pupils to digital sciences through Datagramme and unplugged workshops.