Coming up...

Watch this space for info about our next events and displays.

 

If you have an idea for something mathsy you'd love to see or collab with us for, let us know! 

You can read what sorts of things we've got up to previously below.

Mathateca Logic Puzzle Workshops
Mathapoetica: Mathematical Poetry Workshop

 

Join us at the CWEA on Sunday 3rd August for an exciting three-hour workshop exploring the poetry of mathematics and the maths of poetry. All backgrounds and levels of experience are welcome, from maths-phobic poets to mathematicians who’ve never seen a sonnet!

 

Delivered in collaboration with the Canterbury Poets’ Collective.

Show Your Working. Hear from professionals about the maths behind their work.
Show Your Working

Christchurch City Libraries Speaker Series @ Tūranga

 

This November, come along to a night of presentations by professionals about the interesting ways they use maths in their work. Featuring:

 

How Surveyors use Maths by Phil Dewar and Alex Liggett

Statistics: The Backbone of the Global Seed Industry by Kelly Evans

Software Engineering for Geoscientists by Kelsey Vavasour


🗓️ 6:00PM – 7:00PM, Thursday, November 13, 2025
📍TSB Space, Level 1 Tūranga, 60 Cathedral Square

Mathateca Logic Puzzle Workshops
Nerd Nite #39: For the love of maths

 

This April Fools Day, Mathateca are collaborating with Nerd Nite Christchurch to bring you an evening of entertaining talks in a pub about the maths behind juggling, human anatomy and crafting - be there AND be square!

 

🗓️ 6:30 - 8:30 PM, Wednesday 1 April

📍A Rolling Stone, 579 Colombo Street, Christchurch Central

 

Tickets $15 /$10

Mathateca Logic Puzzle Workshops
Exercise Your Brain with Logic Puzzles!

 

Join us on Level 4 at Tūranga, Christchurch's Central Library on the second Sunday of every month from 3:00pm - 4:30pm for our free logic puzzle workshops delivered by New Zealand's top puzzle solver, James McGowan.

 

Whether you're new to logic puzzles or looking to sharpen your skills, come along to train your brain and have a good time!  

Join Mathateca at the Festival of Women and Girls in Science banner
Women and Girls in STEM

 

Join us at Tūranga from 10am-3pm Saturday 21st February for an inspiring and hands-on STEM expo perfect for scientists aged 5-15 and their whānau.

Mathateca Logic Puzzle Workshops
Tabletop Tūranga - a free boardgame festival for Canterbury

 

Join friends old and new for a weekend of tabletop gaming at Christchurch's Central Library. All welcome, from seasoned gamers to those who are brand new to the hobby. Mathateca will be running the maths of Hex activity on Saturday 7th and the maths of Mancala on Sunday 8th, with round robin tournaments in the afternoons both days to test your skills.

🗓️ Saturday 7th - Sunday 8th June, 2025
📍Tūranga, 60 Cathedral Square

Pi Day Calculation-a-thon 

Calling one-and-all to attempt to calculate as many digits of pi as we can, using nothing but paper and pencil.


This pi day, number enthusiasts in Christchurch are gathering to continue calculating as many digits of pi as we can by hand. If you can do long division (or are willing to learn) then you have the required skills to participate.

 

Come along to rooms 222 and 223 of Rātā building at the UC campus, anytime from noon-5pm on Saturday 14th March to help us in our monumental calculation endeavour!

Past events

Mathapoetica - Mathematical Poetry Workshop (3 August 2025)

 

For national poetry month 2025, Mathateca joined forces with the Canterbury Poets' Collective (CPC) to deliver a three-hour workshop on the maths of poetry and the poetry of mathematics at the Canterbury Worker's Educational Association.

 

The workshop was devloped and delivered in collaboration with esteemed poet, editor and tutor Joanna Preston (joannapreston.com) and our very own Rata Ingram. It was a mix of writing time and instruction, including several presentations of maths concepts to inform the exercises. With all 29 places booked, the course proved very popular and it's something we're keen to revisit!

 

Starting with Oulipo and a form called a definitional poem, participants then ventured into the world of fractals including the coastline paradox, the Heighway dragon curve and Koch snowflake. From there, they took a leap into the grammar of Lindenmayer systems, using it to generate a rhyme scheme for their next poem by generating a fractal string from their own rules. Fib poems came next, using the Fibonacci sequence to constrain successive line lengths / syllable counts. Participants also used the fundamental theorem of arithmetic - the structure of the counting numbers - to devise a prime poem.

 

At the end, all left with extra exercises and material (including a mathematician's biographical poem and unpicking maths metaphors in language) to take home for more maths poetry exploration.

 

Comments included "I hadn't thought this hard about something since university", "if maths class was like this, I might've been a mathematician,"  "I loved every minute", "I made it to the end", "it was a wonderful experience", and  "totally mindblowing."