About BAAM

BAAM, short for Bay Area Art and Math, is an informal group based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. The participants are primarily people very active in the global math art community. During the pandemic, virtual meetings attracted people from around the world. Currently meetings are a mix of in person in the Bay Area and virtual and generally consist of a series of talks on recent mathematical art by the participants. The group now known as BAAM was preceded by a more social, general audience group known as the Octahedral Group, which you can read more about below.

Math + Art. Abstract Idea + Concrete Representation. Learning + Interaction.

Our Mission

The Octahedral Group is for people who experience true joy through mathematics, and express that joy through sculpture, dance, music, poetry, or any other artistic medium. We believe that mathematics is beautiful and that there are other ways to experience and celebrate it than the tedious strategies standard in schools.

Many Octahedral Group participants will already know what a rhombic triacontahedron is, have opinions about it, and are wondering why a group called the Octahedral Group just gave an example with icosahedral symmetry. The ones who don’t would like to learn, preferably by doing something like folding one out of business cards.

We are a group of adults, and our talks and workshops assume some maturity and mathematical understanding. Younger people are welcome, but we can’t promise that our group will be right for you.

Our Events

Our events explore ideas such as orderly zip-tie tangling, mathematical balloon twisting, polyhedral flipbook drawing, geometric cookie baking, and math dance parties with ribbons, braids, and binary.