Southwestern University Professor Fumiko Futamura Builds a Math Playground That Merges Mathematics and Art
Mathematics surrounds us in ways we rarely recognize. From the geometric patterns in architecture to the rhythmic structures in music, mathematical principles underpin much of our visual and physical world. At Southwestern University, Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura is making these invisible connections tangible through an ambitious new initiative: the Math Playground. This interactive outdoor installation transforms advanced mathematical concepts into climbable, swingable, and explorable structures, offering visitors a hands-on experience with abstract ideas they might never encounter in a traditional classroom setting.
What Is the Math Playground and Why Does It Matter
The Math Playground represents a novel approach to public mathematics education. Rather than presenting equations on a whiteboard or static displays in a museum, this project embeds complex mathematical models directly into playground equipment. Visitors—both children and adults—interact with non-orientable surfaces, harmonic motion, and graph theory simply by playing. The installation aims to demonstrate that mathematics in art is not merely theoretical but something you can physically experience.
Professor Fumiko Futamura describes the vision succinctly: kids and adults will learn about mathematical ideas without necessarily knowing what those ideas are called, simply through the act of climbing, swinging, and moving through the space. This approach removes the intimidation factor that often accompanies mathematics education and replaces it with curiosity-driven exploration.
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The Five Mathematical Installations That Define the Space
The Math Playground concept includes five distinct pieces of equipment, each representing a different area of mathematical study. Together, they create a comprehensive outdoor learning environment that rewards repeated visits and deeper exploration.
Klein Bottle Slide: Experiencing Non-Orientable Surfaces
The Klein Bottle is a mathematical surface with no distinct inside or outside—a concept that challenges our everyday understanding of three-dimensional space. The Math Playground translates this abstract idea into a looping tubular slide that creates the sensation of moving along a continuous path. Riders experience the disorienting but fascinating property of a surface that folds back on itself without ever crossing an edge.
Boy’s Surface Climbing Net: Exploring Projective Geometry
Named after mathematician Werner Boy, Boy’s Surface represents the smooth, edge-free immersion of the real projective plane in three-dimensional space. Like the Klein Bottle, it exists as one continuous surface with no inside or outside boundary. The climbing net structure allows visitors to physically navigate this complex geometric object, feeling how the surface connects and loops in unexpected ways.
Lissajous Swing Set: Visualizing Complex Harmonic Motion
A Lissajous Curve emerges when two oscillations occur simultaneously at different frequencies. The swing set installation incorporates small sandbags that release sand as the swing moves, gradually tracing these elegant curves onto the ground below. This piece makes the relationship between motion and mathematical form immediately visible—visitors can see the patterns they create in real time.
Zoetrope Merry-Go-Round: Understanding Periodic Motion
The zoetrope, a pre-film animation device, relies on periodic motion and evenly spaced frames to create the illusion of continuous movement. By building this mechanism into a merry-go-round, the Math Playground connects rotational physics with visual perception and mathematical timing. As the platform spins, visitors witness how precise mathematical intervals produce smooth, lifelike animation.
Euler Path Walkway: Navigating Graph Theory
An Euler Path is a route through a graph that travels each edge exactly once—a foundational concept in graph theory with applications ranging from logistics to network design. The walkway connecting all playground elements follows this principle, meaning visitors who traverse the entire path experience graph theory through movement rather than abstraction.
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The Collaborative Team Behind the Math Playground
Major interdisciplinary projects rarely emerge from a single mind. The Math Playground resulted from a collaboration between three distinct perspectives: mathematics, visual art, and community engagement. Professor Fumiko Futamura brought the mathematical expertise, ensuring that each installation accurately represented its underlying concept. Jiabao Li, an Austin-based artist and Associate Professor at Northeastern University, contributed the design vision and practical knowledge of creating interactive installations. Ron Berry, Founder and Co-Artistic Director of the Austin art nonprofit Fusebox, provided the organizational framework and connections to the broader arts community.
The collaboration began through the Simons Foundation’s Triangle Program, which specifically funds partnerships between artists, scientists, and arts organizations. Former Southwestern University President Edward Burger recommended Futamura for the mathematician role, recognizing her unique combination of mathematical rigor and artistic sensibility. The team was one of only 15 groups selected nationally for the program’s Open Interval phase and ultimately one of just five to receive full implementation funding.
How the Simons Foundation Grant Supports Public Mathematics Education
The Simons Foundation awarded the Math Playground team a $150,000 grant through its Science, Society & Culture division. This funding comes from the Infinite Sums project, a national initiative dedicated to bringing mathematics to life through cultural experiences. The foundation’s goal extends beyond simply funding interesting projects—they want to uncover what they call the “hidden beauty” of mathematics and demonstrate how mathematical thinking can inspire and guide creative work.
The Triangle Program operates on a specific model: each grant supports a three-way collaboration representing different aspects of cultural and scientific life. For the Math Playground, this meant pairing an artist who works with interactive spaces, a mathematician who studies visual representation, and an arts organization experienced in public engagement. The initial $30,000 Open Interval phase allowed the team to prototype ideas—including a working model of the Lissajous swing set—before submitting a full proposal for the implementation grant.
Fumiko Futamura’s Path From Aspiring Artist to Mathematics Professor
Understanding the Math Playground requires understanding its lead mathematician. Fumiko Futamura did not arrive at mathematics through a traditional STEM pipeline. She grew up expecting to become an artist, finding deep satisfaction in drawing, painting, and sculpting throughout her childhood. When she entered the University of Louisville as an undergraduate, she seriously considered pursuing an art degree.
Mathematics eventually claimed her academic focus—she earned a bachelor of arts in math, followed by a master’s of science at Vanderbilt University and a Ph.D.—but art never left her thinking. As a professor, she continuously searched for ways to integrate visual and hands-on approaches into mathematical instruction. She discovered a broader community of mathematicians and artists working at this intersection, which helped her find her professional identity.
This dual background directly informs the Math Playground. Futamura understands both the mathematical precision required to accurately represent concepts like non-orientable surfaces and the artistic intuition needed to make those concepts physically engaging. Her teaching at Southwestern University reflects the same philosophy: she regularly uses visualizations, renderings, and hands-on activities to help students grasp abstract ideas.
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Mathematics in Art at Southwestern University: A Broader Context
The Math Playground did not emerge in isolation. It builds on years of interdisciplinary work at Southwestern University, much of it directly involving Futamura. Her entry-level “Explorations in Math” course explicitly examines the relationship between mathematics, music, and art. Students who enter the course identifying primarily as artists often discover mathematical interests they did not know they had, while math majors gain appreciation for creative applications of their field.
At the advanced level, Futamura’s geometry courses teach projective geometry through perspective drawing—the mathematical framework that allows artists to represent three-dimensional space on flat surfaces. She co-authored a textbook on this subject, “Perspective and Projective Geometry,” which won the Mathematical Association of America’s 2026 Daniel Solow Author’s Award for outstanding teaching materials. The text takes an inquiry-based approach, guiding students to discover mathematical principles through hands-on drawing exercises rather than memorizing formulas.
Futamura also co-organized Southwestern’s 42nd Brown Symposium, themed “Visualizing the Abstract.” The event brought together speakers who work across media—metal, wood, crochet, film, animation—to make conceptual ideas physically manifest. One notable presenter was science writer and artist Margaret Wertheim, who demonstrated how crocheting can model hyperbolic geometry, a non-Euclidean system that initially seemed impossible to represent physically. This presentation directly influenced Futamura’s thinking about embodied mathematics and informed her approach to the Math Playground.
What the Math Playground Means for USA Education Innovation
Projects like the Math Playground represent a meaningful shift in how educational institutions think about public engagement with STEM subjects. Traditional approaches to mathematics outreach often involve competitions, lectures, or digital games. Physical installations that invite unstructured play offer something different: a low-pressure environment where mathematical thinking happens naturally rather than through explicit instruction.
Southwestern University News has documented how this project fits within broader institutional priorities. The university’s Paideia philosophy emphasizes connecting fundamental questions across disciplines—a framework that supported Futamura’s interdisciplinary career long before the Math Playground concept existed. When Futamura joined the faculty in 2007, she specifically chose Southwestern over other institutions because the Paideia program valued both her mathematical expertise and her artistic background equally.
The Math Playground also demonstrates how liberal arts institutions can compete for and effectively use major research grants. The Simons Foundation typically funds work at large research universities, but Southwestern’s emphasis on faculty-student collaboration and interdisciplinary thinking made Futamura a compelling candidate. Her recognition as the 2026 Southwestern University Teaching Award recipient further validates this approach—showing that innovative public scholarship and excellent teaching reinforce rather than compete with each other.
Explore our related articles for further reading on how Southwestern University faculty are advancing education through creative, interdisciplinary projects.
The Future of the Math Playground Project
As of late 2026, the Math Playground team is navigating the practical challenges of turning renderings into built structures. The target location is Austin, Texas, but installing a playground involves significantly more regulatory oversight than placing a sculpture. Once children climb on equipment, it falls under playground safety standards rather than art installation guidelines. Every structure requires approval from structural engineers, and the team must work with city officials to secure an appropriate site.
Despite these logistical hurdles, response to the project has been overwhelmingly positive. When Futamura presented the Math Playground at the Gathering 4 Gardner Conference—an event focused on mathematics, magic, illusions, and puzzles—she showed the renderings to an audience of enthusiasts and professionals. The response was immediate and audible: gasps from the crowd when they saw what the team planned to build. Jiabao Li’s visual designs successfully communicate the ambition and beauty of the concept, generating excitement that may help the team secure additional support as the project moves toward construction.
For Professor Futamura, the Math Playground represents the culmination of decades spent working at the intersection of mathematics and art. It also reflects her core teaching philosophy: empowering students and the public to see mathematics not as a set of rules to memorize but as a way of understanding and engaging with the world. As she puts it, the most rewarding moment comes when someone realizes that math can actually be cool—a realization that might happen on a swing set tracing Lissajous curves, or climbing a net shaped like Boy’s Surface, or sliding through a Klein Bottle. The Math Playground makes that realization possible for anyone willing to play.
