Monthly Challenges

Join a monthly challenge to make mathematical patterns, create art, make music, explore a new mathematical topic, and much more. New challenges start in October!

• November 2025: 6-8 Challenge - Turkey Toaster

  Stump your students with the challenge creator in this turkey toasting lesson!

• Turkey Toaster

• July 2025: 9–12 Challenge - Snell's Law

• Snell's Law

• May 2025: Escape Rooms

  Can you use logic and mathematics to escape the rooms? Click here to join the activity as a student. If you're interested in assigning this activity to your own group of students, use the activity below. Watch this video to learn more about this activity and find more escape rooms here.

• Escape the Art and Science Museum

• May 2025: Contour Golf

  Play golf using 3D graphs and contour maps! Click here to join the activity as a student. If you're interested in assigning this activity to your own group of students, use the activity below.

• Contour Golf

• April 2025: The Polypad Art and Music Contest

  The 2025 Polypad Art and Music Contest has launched! Explore the activities below to learn about making art and music in Polypad.

• Getting Started: Making Music in Polypad
• Getting Started: Making Visual Art in Polypad

• April 2025: 8–12 Challenge

  Learn about gradient descent and determine some of its key attributes and potential pitfalls. Click here to join the challenge with other teachers and students. Use the link below to assign the activity to your own group of students.

• Gradient Descent

• March 2025: K–5 Challenge for Pi Day

  Watch this brief video for an introduction to this challenge. In this activity, students will see a full circle as one bar of music and each quadrant as a beat. With that setup, they'll investigate different sectors, compose beats of their own, and solve a variety of rhythmic challenges. Click here to join the challenge with other teachers and students. Use the link below to assign the activity to your own group of students.

• Drumming With Angles

• March 2025: 6–8 Challenge for Pi Day

  Watch this brief video for an introduction to this challenge. Explore different relationships of parts of a circle: radius and diameter, diameter and circumference, and radius and area. Students will create many different circles, plot the relationship on a graph and try to model the relationship with a proportional equation. Click here to join the challenge with other teachers and students. Use the link below to assign the activity to your own group of students.

• Circle Relationships

• March 2025: 9–12 Challenge for Pi Day

  Watch this brief video for an introduction to this challenge. In celebration of `\pi` Day, approximate `\pi` using a fun (but inefficient) method known as "Buffon's Needle." Click here to join the challenge with other teachers and students. Use the link below to assign the activity to your own group of students.

• Buffon's Needle

• February 2025: K–5 Challenge

  Watch this brief video for an introduction to this challenge. Put your DJ hat on and wow your friends. Click here to join the challenge with other teachers and students across the country! If you're interested in assigning this activity to your own group of students, use the activity below.

• The Rhythm of Angles

• February 2025: 6–12 Challenges

  Watch this brief video for an introduction to this challenge. Click here to join the challenge with students and teachers around the country, and see how smart a network you can train! If you're interested in assigning this activity to your own group of students, use either of the activities below.

• Train Your Own Neural Network: A Preview
• Train Your Own Neural Network

• January 2025: Kolam Tiles

  Watch this brief video for an introduction to this challenge. To submit a Kolam Tile creation of your own, click here to join the activity as a student. If you're interested in assigning this activity to your own group of students, use the activity below.

• Kolam Tiles