Week 3 Reading - Off the Grid

 

The article by Doolittle discusses the ubiquity of grids in organizing society and raises some questions about the illusion of control that comes along with them. Doolittle explores some of the failures of the grid system, writing about some agricultural applications as well as city planning. Within the article, Doolittle suggests some possible alternatives to the grid system that is everywhere today, such as hexagonal patterns. I find this somewhat interesting because I play a lot of modern board games, and I would say that many if not most of them employ some kind of hexagonal grid system. I wonder what makes hexagons an attractive shape for board game designers/players. Perhaps the flexibility of movement, offering 6 possible “connections” rather than just 4. Octagons would offer 8 but would not fit together in an interlocking way. Hexagons are also a reflection of nature, as bumblebees create a hexagonal honeycomb. 

My first “stop” in this week’s reading was the passage about the grid system in Saskatchewan. Doolittle explains that on large maps of the province, the western border appears to be straight, while the eastern border is jagged. “The townships from which provinces are built are not exactly square, because their east and west boundaries are great circles of the earth converging at the North Pole, so the north edge of every township is slightly shorter than the south edge. This inconsistency leads to an incompatibility in the grid along east-west lines called correction lines,” (Doolittle, 2018). This passage highlights the challenge of imposing a grid on a real-world landscape, because of the incompatibility due to the curvature of the earth. Within my elementary mathematics classroom, I could challenge students to find examples of grid applications and their limitations, and the relationship between structure and flexibility. Doolittle (2018) goes on to explain, “no matter how determined we are to extend our grids, we must eventually bow to the gentle but insistent curvature of the earth.”

My second “stop” in the reading was Doolittle’s passage about the moon. He explains, “the path of minimal energy [to travel from Earth to the moon] would use almost no energy at all. The trick is using tiny bursts of fuel at exactly the appropriate time.” This made me think of the control we have when doing high speed sports, and how tiny changes or adjustments in certain scenarios can lead to a larger impact. For instance, if you are a golfer, a 1 mm adjustment to the face of your club at impact can change the destination of the ball by 40 yards left to right. The spin rate also has a huge impact on the result of the ball. These are all things that are impacted by tiny control adjustments that are almost imperceptible to the untrained naked eye. Skiing and skating, too, require tiny micro-adjustments in order to stay on course and optimize speed and energy.

Overall a very interesting week this week, which I hope leads to some fascinating conversations in my classroom.  A question:

- How might the exploration of alternative geometries, like hexagonal patterns, influence the way we approach problem-solving and design in various aspects of our lives?