Today Is Pi Day!

That would be March 14, 3.14.  Pi Day starts out like any other Pi day, that is, with Pie.

Here’s the pie and finishing up on the calligraphy from last class.  Everybody looks so serious.   But Pi Day is not all about eating pie and remembering 3.1416, today students are making a Pi Day Penny Pendant.

The video above is free slideshow made using Animoto.  It shows the basic steps involved in making a Pi Day Penny Pendant.  More Information about making the Pi Day Penny Penny Pendant is available on my, soon to be completed e-commerce, jewelry site. I did the guitar too!

The bench above gives you an idea as to the tools needed to make the Pi Day Penny Pendant.

You can’t quite see it, but, Ms  Suzanne is drawing a small Pi symbol onto a piece of paper she will glue to a penny.

It’s hard to see from the photo, but learning to saw for the first time is ‘kinda difficult and Ms. Suzanne broke a few blades getting the project done.  That is perfectly normal and part of the process of learning how to saw.  she did not break as many as other people.

The video above is of Ms. Suzanne sawing.  No real reason, but having a action video seemed like a good idea and she could say hello to her daughter.

In the shot above, Ms. Meisha is using a small Archimedes drill to put a small hole in the penny to fit the drill bit through.  After I got to thinking about it I suggested she cut a small heart in the penny, and not the Pi symbol, in order to develop some skills in sawing without plunging right into cutting the more intricate Pi symbol.  I probably should have suggested this to Ms. Suzanne, but I did not.

Ms. Meisha sawing

Meisha’s finished, well not filed yet, heart pendant.

This is a Pi symbol I sawed out.