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Inspired by Dr Katie Steckles, who works for Manchester University to engage students with maths and science, our maths ambassadors produced a video to celebrate Pi Day 2021. 

The video was created during lockdown with students using their initiative to plan and produce short films each of which demonstrated a different way of calculating Pi. Maya N found Pi to a high degree of accuracy using Buffon’s Needles and Nilakantha Series. Katie B, assisted by her cat, used the circumference and diameter of coins. Izzy O-B clearly explains the difficulty of measuring circumference with string. Emma and Amy C raided their nail varnish store to make their colourful measurements. Emily L produced a graphical image of pi to 200 decimal places which stretched across the floor of two rooms of her house. The team of Lucy L, Helena L, Nkonge L and Thomas L constructed a long pendulum and used the period of its swing to find an excellent approximation to pi. 

Once all the clips were complete Maya edited them together and overlaid a music track of the digits of Pi written as musical notes and played on a glockenspiel. The video was completed in time for 14  March, which can be written as 3.14 so is generally recognised as Pi day. July 22, of course, a better approximation but is less widely celebrated.