Math's SparkX Project

By Gabriel, Aaron, Yadav and Avinash of 10D

Estimating Pi by using
Buffon’s needle experiment:
Unfortunately, most of us only know pi as
related to the circumference of a circle;
however, pi is everywhere in nature and in
the world of mathematics. One of the best
examples to prove this statement is
Buffon's needle experiment, which is
about statistics. It is a super simple but
cool math project to do and it's about
probability. Students can find pi by just
throwing toothpicks on a board.
Materials Required:

PAPER RULER PENCIL TOOTHPICKS PROTRACTOR GRAPH PAPER

Procedure:

First, you measure the Then you drop your

Then pi will be equal to 2*
length of the toothpicks toothpicks and count how
(the number of times
and draw lines but make many of them are crossing
toothpick you drop/the
the distance between the the lines and how many of
number of toothpicks
lines the same as the them are not crossing the
crossing the line times).
length of the toothpicks. lines.
Online
Simulation:
• Researchers at the University of
Illinois made a simulation to
virtually drop needles and estimate
pi.
• https://mste.illinois.edu/activity/bu
ffon/