The OCTA-TETRA Museum

On Friday, Lori and I had an unusual adventure. We were invited to visit a privately owned math museum. Its name is "The OCTA-TETRA"; Dan Suttin is the math wizard who created this unique space. We could hardly believe our eyes! All we could think of was the phrase, "math eye candy!" The room was filled with multitudes of geometric structures on tables and hanging from the ceiling. This place is an explosion of math. Dan, the owner/proprietor, believes in a hands-on approach. Many of the visitors are encouraged to create a geometric sculpture of their own. This museum is a popular San Antonio field trip destination for classrooms of students ages 9 and up. One wall is named "The Great Wall". On it are quotes encouraging the reader to understand the relationship between math and all other aspects of life. It reminded me of a question often asked by Donna Haymes (one of Lori's former principals), "See the math?" Also on the wall were pictures of various structures that both he and his students made. Dan's mission is:

  1). To inspire future architects, engineers, designers, artists, and mathematicians to pursue educations and careers in those fields;

  2). To advance the understanding that the above-named fields of endeavor are not mutually exclusive, but rather that they may overlap significantly;

  3). To celebrate creativity in all of the arts.

  We felt that it was both an honor and a privilege to be invited into the realm of Dan Suttin and his OCTA-TETRA Museum.

    Link:

          YouTube/Math, paper, scissors

Entrance to the OCTA-TETRA Museum.

Dan Suttin, owner/proprietor of the museum, displaying one of his creations.

Some of the sources of his inspiration.

Long view of the museum.

News article about the museum.

The "Great Wall".

Albert Einstein is one of Dan's main inspirations.

Another inspiration for Dan is Steve Jobs.

More creations. The multi-colored sculpture hanging from the ceiling is made from balsa sticks glued together.

After Dan had seen the Prague Astronomical clock, he took a picture of the faceplate, bought a cheap clock at IKEA and pasted the faceplate picture on the clock. Voilà!

One of the larger creations is the Jack-in-the-Box house.

A surprise photo on one of the museum's walls- part of the reason Dan invited us to the museum after our first meeting. We had told him of this picture, at which point he smiled and said... "You have to come to my museum and see what I have on display there."