VIDEO: Paper Snowflakes Made Easy

If you've ever taken a pair of scissors and cut up folded pieces of paper to make snowflakes, you know how fun it can be.

For YouTube contributor Vihart, the fun comes from the deep mathematics involved. in this four minute video, she demonstrates - and tells us, in a chirpy yet descriptive narration - how to make paper snowflakes to a new level.

Using just paper and scissors, pencil and protractor, and an understanding of prime factorization and several other concepts that we'll leave to the experts, she races through over a dozen paper snowflake designs. Different folding techniques to create symmetrical designs from three folds, five folds, six folds, ten - it goes on and on with astonishing rapidity and invention.

It all comes down to this, she tells us: "Cutting a snowflake design efficientlyl is all about putting the same cutlines on top of each other, so you only have to cut them once." Words to live by.

According to her user profile she's a professional mathematician at the Kahn Academy, an online education non-profit. Sign me up for paper snowflakes!

Have any craft ideas for the Holiday Season? Tell us in the Comments!

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