The Team
Stan Wagon (a mathematician at Macalester College in St. Paul) and
Dan Schwalbe (a software engineer) return for a sixth time to this event.
Joining them are Alex Kozlowski, a senior student in computer science
at the University of California at Berkeley, and John Sullivan, a
mathematician at the University of Illinois. Sullivan's research studies
surfaces whose shape is determined by energy-minimization principles,
and he has applied this idea to the concept of turning a sphere inside-out.
The design was created by team representative Carlo Séquin, a professor
of computer science at Berkeley. Séquin's work allows him to integrate
his interests in constructivist sculpture with his avocation to make
mathematics more approachable to the general public.
He was also on last year's team, whose work was awarded second place
and was selected as the US Snow Sculpture of the Year.