List of Random Maze Design Ideas (in no particular order or relevance…)
Posted: May 24, 2013 Filed under: 2013 Corn Maze, Maze Design Leave a comment »
Ideas for maze design
Maze Design 2013: The clock is ticking, so it’s time to engage in some useful procrastination as I sit down to do the maze design…
Part of the brainstorming process for maze design is in free-associating with ideas and images until some kind of coherent, useful theme coalesces out of the maelstrom. Here are some thoughts that have made it onto one list or another and I found in my maze design folder:
optical illusions; spiders; webs; carousels; gardens;trees; snakes (coiled, see Navaho sand paintings); maps; compass rose; DNA; life sciences–animals/insects/plants/viruses/bacteria/prions
Les Caux cave paintings; drones (as in UAVs); Platonic solids; triangles; three-dimensional designs; exploded views; snake eating its tail; Galapagos tortoises; moon; Singularity; sphere; torus; visual paradoxes;
Map of prime numbers; crop circles; hawk/eagle; unicorn; badger; bees/beehive; octopus; owls; tapestries; planets; solar systems/galaxies
Any ideas? Let me know…
The Making of a Maze Summer Camp
Posted: May 23, 2013 Filed under: 2013 Corn Maze, Maze Design | Tags: 2013 Corn Maze, corn maze, maze, maze design, summer camp Leave a comment »I think that the thing that Alan and I love most about our corn maze is the process of creation–all of it, from brainstorming and sketching, to actual design, and then to the task of carving it into the corn field. This year, we’ve partnered with the Center for Engagement in Madison WI , to turn our incredibly fun but private process into something that can be actually experienced by young people: the very first “Maze Mania” summer camp.
The camp will consist of twelve kids and three teachers, and their task will be to work with Alan and I as they learn the maze design and cutting process. And it’s not easy work: they’ll be challenged to come up with a design (for the Children’s Maze) that meets very specific parameters, and part of the camp is spent actually cutting the maze into the cornfield on a (probably) hot summer day.
For me, the camp is about sharing the joyfulness of math and design art and seeing a project through from the beginning to completion. I spend a good week designing the big maze, and Alan spends another week cutting it, so in early summer we just living and breathing the maze 24/7. It’s pretty intense, but fun. It’s not often that a real-world business has a process like this that is both interesting and accessible to young people, so we are eager to share the experience.
Treinen Farm Corn Maze featured on the Tonight Show
Posted: October 11, 2012 Filed under: 2012 Corn Maze, Maze Design | Tags: corn maze, da vinci, Tonight Show, vitruvian man 1 Comment »Last night our corn maze was featured on the Tonight Show during Jay Leno’s monologue–check out this video (at 1:20) to see our maze! (Of course, we missed it because it was past our bedtime…)
Math Day at the Maze
Posted: October 4, 2012 Filed under: 2012 Corn Maze, Math in the maze | Tags: carbon nanotube, corn, knot topology, math, maze, nanotechnology Leave a comment »This week is our first Math Day at the Maze. We’ve got almost 450 kids ready to learn about how we make the maze and the math concepts we’ve incorporated. We will also have hands-on stations, presented by the Wisconsin Mathematics Council. Dave Ebert, the president, has put together a team of math students who will run stations for the younger students. We’re pretty excited–it will be a lot of fun. It’s a lot of kids (we did have to turn some away) but we’ve got lots of activities to keep everyone busy.
Carbon nanotube design for the corn maze–we’ll show the kids the symmetry in this figure, and we’ll demonstrate how we cut it!
Treinen Farm Favorite Recipe — Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
Posted: September 13, 2012 Filed under: Recipes Leave a comment »
TREINEN FARM PUMPKIN WHOOPIE PIES (If you aren’t sure what a Whoopie Pie is, you definitely need to try this recipe)
We would make this all the time in the fall if we had any time to cook…
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 3/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup butter
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 3 large egg yolks
- 2 1/2 cups pureed pumpkin , canned or fresh
- 1 tsp vanilla
FILLING:
- 3/4 stick butter
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 egg white
- 1 TBS milk
Simple Instructions (if you need more in-depth how-to, ask your mother or someone who knows how to cook…)
- Mix the brown sugar, eggs, butter, vanilla and pumpkin together.
- Mix all the other stuff together separately, then combine with the above.
- Don’t mix too much or they’ll be tough (who knows why? not me.)
- Drop by tablespoons onto cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.
- FILLING: Mix all the ingredients together, whipping it up until everything stops separating and looks fluffy.
- When the cookies are cool, put filling in between two so they are like Oreos.
- Eat all of them, or at least until you feel sick (that’s what I’ve always done…)
The Meaning in the Maze
Posted: August 23, 2012 Filed under: 2012 Corn Maze, GRIN Technology, Steampunk | Tags: corn, corn maze, da vinci, lodi, maze, nanotechnology, pumpkin patch, Treinen Farm, vitruvian man, wisconsin 1 Comment »
We always like to include multiple layers of meaning within our corn maze. We like to have an aesthetically pleasing image that is fairly easily recognizable (this year it’s da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” aka “that guy, you know, the one in the circle with this arms out like this <insert realistic demo of arms outstretched here>, yeah, that guy”. However, our da Vinci guy is a cyborg–note the ray gun hand and the mechanical wing, not to mention the assorted gears for joints and a clockwork heart.
Cyborg guy is shown not in a circle/square deal like da Vinci’s, but in the planar projection of a hypercube (aka a “tesseract”, aka “what are you talking about?”) So, a hypercube is like this: you know what a square is, right? Okay, now a cube is just a three-dimensional square. Still with me? A hypercube is simply a four-dimensional cube. ( Here’s a little more technical explanation.) Very cool.
The gears are a nod to mechanical technology, especially the steam-era –aka Steampunk, which is also cool. We’ve got a little circuit-boardy stuff filling in the spaces on the lower right and mid-left.
The knot-like thing in the lower left is, well, a knot, because knots are mathematically interesting. It’s made out of a carbon nanotube, which leads us into the fascinating world of nanotechnology.
The theme this year is technology, ranging from the awesomeness of da Vinci to the steam-era, all the way to modern math and tech. Specifically the “GRIN” technologies: genetics (umm, because the cyborg is also genetically-modified–yeah, that’s it…); robotics (again, cyborg guy sort of counts); information tech (circuit boards); and nanotech, as previously noted (plus the weaponized nanoswarms employed in patrolling the maze for people cutting through the corn…)
More info and links to come on all of these elements.
Yes, the corn is tall enough…the maze looks great
Posted: August 4, 2012 Filed under: 2012 Corn Maze 2 Comments »
Rex and I headed out to check on the maze–just wanted to see if 1) the corn was tall enough (yes);
2) Alan’s work cutting it was up to its usual standards (yes);
3) If I would get lost (yes). All very good signs!
How I Design the Treinen Farm Corn Maze Part 4
Posted: July 27, 2012 Filed under: GRIN Technology, Maze Design, Steampunk, Uncategorized | Tags: corn, corn maze, design, lodi, maze design, steampunk, vitruvian man, wisconsin Leave a comment »
The maze is DONE! (Actually it was done a little while ago, but now we have a photo to prove it.) Alan and the crew got the design cut into the field right before we had to leave for Montana…and then we thought we’d be returning to beautiful, six+ feet tall corn. Instead, we returned home to mournful, very thirsty corn that was about knee high and had pretty much stopped growing. Hmm, it’s not that great a maze when you can see all the trails. So, we did our rain dances, hung clothes on the line, left the laptop “accidentally” open on the patio table, all the things that in the past have guaranteed rain. No luck. We got a backyard swimming pool, thinking that would trigger a cold, rainy summer. Nope. We finally pulled out the only trick we could think of–we purchased irrigation equipment.
That worked–before we had pipe set up to irrigate the maze, we got a few storms and the corn perked right up. It’s been growing at that insanely fast rate that corn can do with adequate moisture and hot weather, so it’s going to be plenty tall for the season. Yay!
The video shows the final design, and here’s the preliminary photo below. Alan and I have to go over the photo, see where he made any errors–sorry, “took artistic liberties with my design”–and then we either go back into the maze and make changes, or, more likely, change the map to reflect the real maze. And there’s always Photoshop…
Our first photo of the 2012 corn maze–we’ll get a better photo once we correct any errors that we find using this one.
How I Design the Treinen Farm Corn Maze Part 3
Posted: June 6, 2012 Filed under: GRIN Technology, Maze Design, Steampunk, Uncategorized | Tags: corn, corn maze, design, lodi, maze design, steampunk, vitruvian man, wisconsin 2 Comments »
The pressure is on..yesterday Alan pointed out that you can “row” the corn already. Since I’ve been married to a farmer for a number of years, I know what that means: the plants are up enough that when you are driving by you can see the rows. Good thing I’ve been working on the design–did I mention that I’m not done, though? It usually takes me about a week to get the design ready to give to Alan, and I’m probably halfway there.
Treinen Farm Maze Design Step Two –the Idea Collage
Posted: June 4, 2012 Filed under: GRIN Technology, Maze Design, Steampunk | Tags: maze design, steampunk, vitruvian man Leave a comment »
Here’s the next step in maze design–collecting ideas and images and taping them to my closet door next to my desk. I use these as inspiration for the preliminary sketches, and to see which elements will work visually. I’m also looking at ideas for incorporating math and science for our field trips. It’s easy to spend too much time on this phase because it’s so fun…
Okay, so far the maze will be incorporating GRIN technologies (Genetics, Robotics, Information Technology, Nanotechnology); a cyborg, a carbon nanotubes, some da Vinci images, including the Vitruvian Man and a perpetual motion machine. And steampunk…lots of steampunk.
Next step: start the actual design (this year I’m using iDraw on my mac.)
