Unit on Euler Characteristic and Polyhedra

Do these on or about March 31

Polyhedra and Euler Characteristic


Task 1--Start this before the discussion session:
Get out the Polydrons you took home with you, and build some polyhedra.  Count the vertices (V), edges (E) and faces (F) of your polyhedra and enter them in this worksheet.  Save the worksheet when you're done.
📜Assignment 1: Turn in the worksheet by uploading it to the assignment Euler-Characteristic-1 in Canvas.

A Polydron cube showing a vertex, edge and face

Optional: Video discussion online at 2:00 March 31st.  It will be recorded and available in Canvas afterwards.  Get out your Polydrons for this discussion!

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/841570414

Meeting ID: 841 570 414

Nets of Polyhedra


Task 2: Learning about and visualizing nets:
If you take a polyhedron that you built out of polydrons, and un-snapped it part way, so that it was still all in one connected piece, but it lays flat on the table, that would be a net for that polyedron
Post image
🎮 Practice visualizing flat nets and their corresponding 3D polyhedra by playing Nets of 3D Shapes at TurtleDiary.com:
https://www.turtlediary.com/game/nets-of-3d-shapes.html

(nothing to turn in)

Task 3: Designing nets in  Geogebra

🎥  First watch this video of me making the net of a dodecahedron using Geogebra.

Then go to https://www.geogebra.org/ and make nets of each of these three polyhedra:
Copy each of your nets into a Word document and save it
📜Assignment 2: Turn in the three nets you designed by uploading the document in the Canvas assignment  Polyhedra-Nets

Do these on or about April 2

Optional: Video discussion online at 2:00 April 2nd.  It will be recorded and available in Canvas afterwards. 

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/999092158

Meeting ID: 999 092 158


Euler Characteristic of Planar Graphs 🎥  Watch Video 1: An example of drawing an appropriate graph, and calculating the Euler Characteristic.

Assignment 3: Do the Making Connected Planar Graphs task in our Geogebra group
If you have not yet joined the Geogebra group, go to: https://www.geogebra.org/groups and enter the code DHHRB

🎥  Watch Video 2: the most common way of proving that the Euler characteristic of a connected planar graph is 2.

🎥  Video 3: Watch this video made by 3Blue1Brown on Euler's Formula and Graph Duality

📜 Assignment 4: Fill in this worksheet that asks you to work through some of the details in the proofs in videos 2 and 3.
Save your completed worksheet and Turn in the worksheet by uploading it to the Canvas assignment Euler-Characteristic-Proofs

Connecting Planes, Spheres and Polyhedra


🎥 Video 1: The vertices, edges and faces of a polyhedron can be drawn onto/projected onto a sphere. The number of vertices, edges and faces of the polyhedron will be the same as the number of vertices, edges and faces of the graph on the sphere.  The Euler characteristic of a polyhedron is the same as the Euler Characteristic of a sphere.

🎥  Video 2: You can project things on a sphere onto the plane.  This is a stereographic projection.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX-0Laeczgk

🎥  Video 3: Further adventures in stereographic projection (you can probably just let the previous video go to the "next" video to get to this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbUOScpu0ws

🎥  Video 4: Using stereographic projections, you can turn a graph in the plane into a graph on the sphere

Do these on or around April 7

Optional: Video discussion online at 2:00 April 7th.  It will be recorded and available in Canvas afterwards. 

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/716087176

Meeting ID: 716 087 176


Shapes that have an Euler characteristic ≠ 2

   Start by going to the Geogebra group and doing the Experiment with donuts task.


Then watch these videos about finding the Euler Characteristic of a torus and a 2-holed torus:

🎥  Video 1: Another torus with flat faces

🎥  Video 2: An efficient way to cut up a round torus

🎥  Video 3: One way of cutting up a 2-holed torus

Check out Wikipedia for some pictures of surfaces with genus 0, 1, 2 and 3

📜 Pencil and paper assignment:
  1. Find another way of cutting up a torus into vertices, edges and faces.  Show your way, and use it to show that the Euler Characteristic of a torus is 0
  2. Find another way of cutting up a 2-holed torus into vertices, edges and faces.  Show your way and use it to show that the Euler Characteristic of a 2-holed torus is -2.
Turn in your assignment by taking a picture of your work.  Get your picture onto your computer, and copy and paste your picture(s) into a Word document.  Save the Word document and put it in the Canvas Assgnment Euler Characteristic of Tori

Do these on or around April 9

Optional: Video discussion online at 2:00 April 9th.  It will be recorded and available in Canvas afterwards. 

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/753307733

Meeting ID: 753 307 733

Puzzles and deductions you can make using Euler Characteristic and other properties of polyhedra

🎥  Video 1: Easy puzzles
Written out easy puzzle example

⋮  Assignment: Do Euler Characteristic Puzzle Quiz in Canvas

🎥 Video 2: Numberphile--how many panels on a soccer ball
🎥 Video 3: Harder Euler characteristic deductions/puzzles
The equation sheet from video 3

📜 Assignment:
Pick one of the more regular/uniform polyhedra (one of the Archemedean Solids) from the Polyhedra Viewer
Show/explain how to deduce the number of each type of polygon in the polyhedron in a similar way to those in Videos 2 and 3.
Turn in your assignment by explaining your work in a Word document, and upload it to the Canvas dropbox Polyhedron deductions

🗐 Unit project:
Choose an infinite family of polyhedra, and do all of the following for that family:
Suggested families of polyhedra from the Polyhedra Viewer Example: If you were doing the family of pyramids (not in the list because that's too easy), and N was the number of sides of the base, then the number of vertices would be V = N+1, because there are n vertices around the base, and 1 vertex at the top.

Turn in your project by
showing your work in a Word document, and upload it to the Canvas dropbox Polyhedra Project