This story begins in Southern California and ends in New York City. It all started when I discovered the snub cube fountain at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). I was wondering how I would make the snub cube more relatable to a bunch of middle and high school students whom I took for a guided “math themed” walk around campus. After tinkering for a while I came up with this modified cube made of 12 Geometiles squares, 24 Mobies, and 12 hair ties. I tested it on some and adults, and they were delighted by it.
The cube clearly needed be shared with the rest of the world, and a perfect opportunity presented itself in the form of a lightning talk at the 2026 Matrix x Imaginary Conference at the National Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) in New York City. This international conference on math outreach had participants from 23 countries, making it a perfect venue for sharing universally engaging math activities. Fortunately, my talk was scheduled towards the end of the conference. This gave me plenty of time to find volunteers to do the pulling of the cube faces.
As luck would have it, my friend from graduate school, Dr. Mariana Levin, was in attendance. Since the conference took place at MoMath, Dr. Levin brought in her school age children to experience the museum. Here is the Levin family in rehearsal for the talk:
I am happy to report that the talk was well liked, and much fun was had by the performers and the audience. Here are some pictures from the presentation.
