“An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't.”
- Anatole France

Our Philosophy and Goals

  Archimedes was a Greek experimental scientist and inventor who attached a great deal of importance to the ‘discovering-by-trying’ approach. This virtual lab borrows the empirical spirit and creative curiosity that Archimedes brought to his work and invites visitors to explore with the same expectations for mind-blowing discovery.
  Concerning the resolution of puzzles or other math problems, our philosophy is very simple: TRY and try again, always try and never give up, don’t worry about mistakes, they are useful steps for climbing the ‘knowledge’. If you don’t know the backgrounds of a particular problem (formula, theory, etc.): ASK someone who knows! Asking and searching for knowledge is also important.

  We are just two puzzle enthusiasts and have founded Archimedes’ Lab with a vision (maybe a utopian idea?) of:
• promoting the puzzle as an educational aid useful for training, socialization and communication. Games and puzzles can increase players' self confidence in their ability to apply knowledge to new situations. In the same way, players will learn the skills of collaborating, managing emotions, and resolving conflicts in groups;
• developing hands-on activities and puzzles that are engaging, affordable, and easy-to-use;
• creating new experiential-based teaching methods involving games and puzzles for teaching Mathematics and Science;
• encouraging integrated approaches to thinking and learning. Integrated approaches enable students to investigate a specific subject using many forms of knowledge and expression, by combining critical thinking, practical skills and topics from other subjects and by connecting the studied subject to their own lives and environment;
• fostering contacts and collaboration among puzzle enthusiasts, and persons or industries involved in education and entertainment world-wide.

  Archimedes’ Lab online is organized to maintain and continue to develop online educational resources including various activities, projects, hands-on materials, educational and puzzle contents for puzzle enthusiasts, teachers, students, and other community members. Archimedes’ Lab encourages teachers to integrate its contents and resources into their classes. It must be taken into consideration that Archimedes' Lab does not receive any financial support or contribution from any Government, Authority or Organization and is maintained by volunteers and from online sales of puzzle products and activities.
  
  The goal of Archimedes' Lab is to:
• improve the spread of Mathematics and Science through simple experiments and games;
• awaken the general public to scientific themes arousing curiosity and amazement;
• revalue and promote the 'manual ability' and other forms of expression or teaching means;
• offer a variety of interesting perceptive games and puzzles that can be used to create an 'open' learning environment;
• supply a balanced vision of Science and to help young people to overcome the 'fear of mistakes' inviting them to transform those mistakes or problems into occasions of improvement and creative opportunity;
• encourage a positive and optimistic approach to challenges and problem solving;
• promote integration and cultural exchanges;
• provide the media, publishers and editors with content (articles, columns and books) about visual and critical thinking puzzles and related materials;
• propose and organize interactive workshops and exhibitions based on hands-on games, puzzles and optical illusions for cultural events.

        A word on Math & Perception puzzles    Tips for solving puzzles

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