Brain Weaves - Introduction : simplebooklet.com

STORY OF A LOOMIt is 10 O’clock on a bright sunny day and we hear the room door open andthe footsteps of children approaching us, ready to occupy the weaving stools.I am Sam the loom and I live with a few fellowlooms in this school’s weaving room.In humanparlance, I have 2 legs, though I prefer to callthem treadles, one yarn winder in the place ofyour right ear and I have a large appetite forcolourful yarns and churn them into beautifullywoven fabrics.I and my fellow looms have been chattingthrough the night about what Ramu & hisfriends might weave today. Yesterday, weoverheard the music teacher Sweta telling thechildren that today’s weaving class is going tobe ‘visual rhythm’. That’s something totally newto us. We have woven yardages of fabrics andsarees but not a musical rhythm.I will createa beat byclapping myhands‘tut…tadat…tut…tadat…tadat…tat..’Krish, the lead singer of ‘Rhythm’, the 6th-grade music troupe took the lead.With his little palms, he started clapping 1..2..3..4… 1..2..3..4... Meanwhile..Ramu, the drummer reminisces about the applause he received from hisfriends when he tried to create an interesting rhythm to Krish’s beat duringlast evening’s practice session.

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Krish, see how my rhythm looks!STORY OF A LOOMWhat is this about?! Are they going to use me as a drum and beat my wood to a pulp? Hopefully not.Ramu took a piece of paper and noted down the rhythm he just created. Walking briskly to the colourful yarn shelf, he picked up two cones. A red and a blue.I was happily opening the warp shed for him to weave as he treadled and I also joined in his peppy rhythm.‘tut…tadat…tut…tadat…tadat…tut…tadat’ .Is he listening to the sound of my music?Seeing the fabric forming in front of his eyes with his rhythm, Ramu’s face is beaming with joy. He is all smiles!He inserted an empty bobbin in my ear and started winding the yarn onto the bobbin. After pondering for a while and some taps on me with his little ﬁngers, he started weaving. Red for ‘tut’ and blue for ‘tadat’. Wove the rhythm again and again just like when he plays the drums.

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I will create a beat by clapping my hands‘tut…tadat…tut…tadat…tadat…tat..’TALE OF A BINOMIAL EQUATIONMy name is Math. It is a strange life for me. People either love me or hate me. Many a time the people who love me also crib what is my use in their day-to-day life, as, after all, I am too theoretical. They don’t realise I am an integral part of science and the root cause of all the technology.They say I belong to the left brain and keep me there forever. Though I am happy & proud about where I am, of late I am curious to see what my neighbour Right brain’s home looks like. They say it looks beautiful as after all that is the place for artists, musicians and performers.After mapping the route and calculating the distance to the coordinates, I ﬁnally landed in the Right brain one day. Wow, it is indeed a beautiful place.First things ﬁrst. I need to make friends in the new place. I wrote some nice codes to arrive at the right match. There I go, my friend is a great creator and her name is ‘Weave Fairy’. She says she likes me a lot as after all she has been borrowing a lot of my concepts in her art.12° 59' 36.50686"80° 15' 17.06167"

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I was happily opening the warp shed for him to weave as he treadled and I also joined in his peppy rhythm.‘tut…tadat…tut…tadat…tadat…tut…tadat’ .Is he listening to the sound of my music?TALE OF A BINOMIAL EQUATIONWe wove one band and Weave Fairy said it looked nice. Time for me to impress my new friend a bit more. I said why don’t we arrange this binomial equation in a Fibonacci sequence and see what shows up. So we did and a beautiful pattern of colourful fabric emerged. Now, I was ﬂoored by the way the colours arranged themselves and Sam the loom called out “Art with math !!!”Now, isn’t that a big accolade for me? Me being part of art? You simply can’t understand how proud I am these days! My head was racing and so was her heart and after a little chat getting to know each other, we decided to create something together.What about using a binomial equation as a woven design? When the binomial equation is used in statistics & probability analyses, it is used for forecasting complex economic problems & weather. But how does it look visually? Good, bad, ugly?!We went to our friend Sam the loom and asked him what he thinks. He was ready with the warp and encouraging as always! We sat on the loom and started singing (x+y)2= x2+2xy+y2, the binomial equation to a nice tune set by Weave Fairy. We selected green colour yarn for x and yellow yarn for y. Expanding the equation, we got the series xx xyxy yy.

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Hi, I am Sam the Loom. You would have seen my big cousins at professional hand weavers’ homes, weaving beautiful sarees. I am rather small built but no less than my big cousins in strength and capabilities. I am an easy-to-handle loom and occupy just about 2 ft x 3 ft. I can be stowed away on my wheels when you don’t need me. Warping my large cousins is a cumbersome task that requires the assistance of professional weavers. But I'm specially built, and I come with pre-made warps. You simply sit in front of me and begin weaving. When my warp is ﬁnished, replace me with another ready-made warp roll, and I'll be ready to go in ﬁve minutes.I am also friends with children. Children can learn to weave fabrics with me in a matter of minutes. Because I am not demanding skills, they work with me easily and display their creative side proudly. When they learn something new in math, science, or art class, they can come to me to see if they can apply their knowledge and weave the concept together.The other day, a visitor with silvery grey hair wearing a nicely pleated saree came to the weaving room. She explained how good I am at encouraging children’s creativity and assisting them in thinking analytically. She also said that I help to divert their attention away from the gadgets and bring them peace. I felt very proud. I later discovered that she is an early childhood development specialist. Isn't it also wonderful that the children try their hand at weaving, which is one of our country's greatest craft forms and cultural heritage?To know more about me and how I can become part of your lovely school, contact Shuttles & Needles. They show the schools how to use me and they have specially curated weaving and teacher training programs.I can’t wait to meet the brilliant children at your school!B R A I N W E AV E SThe School Weaving program

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