How many points is your name worth?

Today in math, we took a break from our usual routine to complete an activity related to our most recent unit on lines and angles.  The basic idea was to measure the angles in the letters of a name and to add them up to find a point value.  At first, we made predictions about whose name would have the most points, but many of results were quite surprising. 

To prepare for the activity, I created simple posters of each student's name on 11" x 17" paper.  I used the most angular, sans serif font that I could find - Century Gothic.  I also created an example with my own name to demonstrate the concept to students.

Each time a student found an angle in his or her name, they marked it and measured it with a protractor, then labeled them.  At first, students found just the obvious angles in Ms and As, but as the scores got higher and higher, students searched for more angles to increase their scores and remain competitive. 

Overall, the activity was perfect for a 45 minute class period and was a nice wrap-up to our unit on Lines and Angles before the study guide review and quiz.  Who knows, maybe next time, we can expand it even further to include identification of types of lines...