Dots-and-Polygons| Event

On Thursday, October 12, at 5 p.m. Lake Erie College is welcoming Dr. Rachel Perrier, a mathematics professor at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, for her presentation, "Dots-And-Polygons."

Dots-and-Boxes is a popular children's game whose winning strategies have been studied by Berlekamp, Conway, Guy, and others. In this talk, we will consider two variations, Dots-and-Triangles and Dots-and-Polygons, both of which utilize the same lattice game board structure as Dots-and-Boxes. The nature of these variations along with this lattice structure lends itself to applying Pick's theorem to calculate claimed area. Several strategies similar to those studied in Dots-and-Boxes are used to analyze these new variations. Rachel Perrier received her Ph.D. in Mathematics from Washington State University in May 2023 and her B.S. in Mathematics from Whitworth University in 2017.  She enjoys helping students see the fun in mathematics and creates an active learning environment in the classroom. Her dissertation research focused on analyzing periodicity properties of multidimensional continued fractions.  Her other research interests include combinatorics topics, such as Riordan arrays.