Williams Students Aim to Break Record Lego Build Time

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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Everything is awesome! Legos are examples of mathematical concepts and problem solving — and a lot of fun.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — If you were paying tens of thousands of dollars to send your offspring to Williams College, you might not be so sanguine when you find out he or she is taking a course in Legos.
 
But Jacob Broude's folks felt otherwise.
 
"My mom and dad called my attention to this," Broude said this week. "They said, 'You love math. You're going to be a math major here. And you love Legos.' "
 
Thus Jacob was a natural for The Mathematics of Lego Bricks, a monthlong Winter Study class offered by Williams mathematics professor Steven Miller.
 
On Wednesday afternoon at 4, the class will culminate in the "Big Build," an attempt to assemble in world record time a 3,152-piece Star Wars-themed Superstar Destroyer at the '62 Center for Performing Arts. The event is open to the public.
 
Miller's students and other volunteers — including elementary school-aged children — will attempt to break last year's time of 10 minutes, 21 seconds.
 
Last year was the first time Miller offered the class, which fits in with Winter Study, a time when students and academicians think outside the box. Inside a box of Lego bricks, Miller finds the tools to talk about mathematical concepts, problem solving and teamwork.
 
"It wasn't inherently obvious how math concepts would apply," Broude said. "I didn't know what he was going to talk about. But we ended up doing a lot of interesting applications.
 
"We really delved into efficiency and Pascal's Triangle. … It was interesting the way he extended the course material from the topic of Legos."
 
The course included an interdisciplinary component with discussions of Lego's business model and how the product has changed over the years.
 
Older readers will recall the days when Legos came only in primary colors and generic shapes. By the time Broude and his classmates were among the toymaker's target audience, Lego's offerings had expanded to include character themes and model kits like the Star Destroyer the class will tackle on Wednesday.
 
"When I was a kid, I played with Legos pretty religiously," Broude said. "I had a box with thousands of Legos from random sets.
 
"It's cool for me to see how you can take math and apply it."

Tags: competition,   legos,   math,   Williams College,   

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Mount Greylock School Committee Votes Slight Increase to Proposed Assessments

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to slightly increase the assessment to the district's member towns from the figures in the draft budget presented by the administration.
 
The School Committee opted to lower the use of Mount Greylock's reserve account by $70,000 and, instead, increase by that amount the share of the fiscal year 2025 operating budget shared proportionally by Lanesborough and Williamstown taxpayers.
 
The budget prepared by the administration and presented to the School Committee at its annual public hearing on Thursday included $665,000 from the district's Excess and Deficiency account, the equivalent of a municipal free cash balance, an accrual of lower-than-anticipated expenses and higher-than-anticipated revenue in any given year.
 
That represented a 90 percent jump from the $350,000 allocated from E&D for fiscal year 2024, which ends on June 30. And, coupled with more robust use of the district's tuition revenue account (7 percent more in FY25) and School Choice revenue (3 percent more), the draw down on E&D is seen as a stopgap measure to mitigate a spike in FY25 expenses and an unsustainable budgeting strategy long term, administrators say.
 
The budget passed by the School Committee on Thursday continues to rely more heavily on reserves than in years past, but to a lesser extent than originally proposed.
 
Specifically, the budget the panel approved includes a total assessment to Williamstown of $13,775,336 (including capital and operating costs) and a total assessment to Lanesborough of $6,425,373.
 
As a percentage increase from the FY24 assessments, that translates to a 3.90 percent increase to Williamstown and a 3.38 percent increase to Lanesborough.
 
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