Vn011.02

Making Beaded Bracelets

5/23/77


In our work at Logo, Miriam has recently tended to not do what I tell her. That’s too strong a statement. When I give Miriam advice, for example, that a certain distance is probably a hundred forty turtle steps, Miriam specifically commands the turtle with some similar but different operand, e.g. FD 130.

Miriam was unhappy with the bracelet she made for Kim and/or Sue (her student teachers at Baldwin, who are leaving on Wednesday). I took the liberty of arranging her beads in a bracelet thus:
2 red (R) 2 blue (B) 2 black (Bl) 6 orange (O)
7 brown (Br)


Br – O – Bl – Br – O – B – Br – O – R –
Br
Br – O – Bl – Br – O – B – Br – O – R –

triplets with a single varying member and the extra bead in the center.

Later, I showed this new bracelet to Miriam and told her I thought I had made a pretty pattern. She untied the knot and removed the string, saying she would make her own pretty pattern. As Miriam proceeded to sort the beads by color, I pointed out a major difficulty. There was one extra brown bead. Miriam put one brown bead on the string. I asked if I could give her a hint. She was willing. “A good trick when you have an even number of beads is to put one of the same kind on at each end of the string and push them to the middle.” Miriam took this advice and produced the following string with which she is quite pleased:


R – Br – O – Br – O – Br – B – Bl – O –
Br
R – Br – O – Br – O – Br – B – Bl – O –

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