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

Nerd Nite Presentation: What is a calculator? (3 September 2025)

 

On Wednesday September 3rd 2025, Mathateca headed to Nerd Nite Christchurch to talk about mathematical tools, alongside two other insightful and nerdy presentations by James Mehigan (“Incarceration and its discontents; how many people do we need in prison?”) and Dr. Christoph Bartneck (“Swim Training Patterns”).

 

Group photo featuring from left James, Nicole (Nerd Nite's chief nerd), Christoph and Rata on the stage at the Rolling Stone. The Nerd Nite logo can be seen behind them on a projector screen.

(from left) James, Nicole (Nerd Nite's chief nerd), Christoph and Rata.

 

Mathateca co-founder, chair, and resident calculation instrument expert Rata Ingram presented "What is a Calculator?", which took the audience on a potted history of computing devices as she developed somewhat of a taxonomy of calculation instruments in true show-and-tell style.

 

On the stage, Rata presents a slide showing a selection of mechanical calculators.

 

Though what you might think of as a calculator might be your typical Casio fx-82 or TI-84+, there are several maths tools that can fit under our definition, from abacuses to adding machines, Napier’s bones to nomograms, Consul the educated monkey to Curt’s mechanical marvel, depending on where we draw the line. Starting with what it means to calculate at all, Rata identifed examples ranging many types of mechanism from placeholding counter systems, tabulated and graphical "calculateds", to mechanical, electronic and software simulated devices, as she developed the definition that underpins her personal collection.

 

The conclusion?

 

Calc-u-later

 

By ruling things both in and out, we got to a calculator being "a purpose-built, self-contained device that automatically performs a fixed, mostly preconfigured set of mathematical calculations based on user input, to help us do maths."

 

As well as the talk, Rata also had a small selection of her calculators on display for the audience to peruse. One of the audience even donated a calculator of their own after the show!

 

A close up of Rata's calculator display table, including a Contex adding machine, an Original Odhner, an Addiator, a Solo, Genaille-Lucas rulers, Consul the Educated Monkey, a Suan-pan abacus, A Fuji slide rule and MasterKey converter, lenticular metric conversion tables, and a Maths Gear "drinkulator"

 

For those who missed it, there's a recording on YouTube.

 

Thanks again to Nerd Nite for a great event to take maths to the masses. We'll look forward to revelling in more mathematical concepts between us in future. Stay tuned!