We are pleased to announce that Maple 12 is now available.  It has some very cool new features - my personal favorites include the addition of polar plots, nifty new dials and gauges, a start-up code region, and the ability to use colour in table cells.  Check out our website to find out what’s new, to watch Maple 12 movies in the new Demo Center, for full details on upgrade specials and more.

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the quarterly Maple Mentor Award for Jan.-Mar. 2008 is Jacques Carette, and the recipient of March's monthly award is Prof. Alejandro Jakubi. Jacques and Alejandro will receive prizes of their choice to thank them for their involvement with the MaplePrimes community. Congratulations to our winners!

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the monthly Maple Mentors Award for February is Joe Riel. Joe will receive a prize of his choice to thank him for his involvement with the MaplePrimes community.

Congratulations!!

Stephanie Rozek chats with Fr. Mike May, from St. Louis University, during the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego. He discusses his work with Maple, and especially how he uses it to teach courses in cryptography. A recording of his lecture “Using Maple worksheets to enable explorations of cryptography with minimal background” follows.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the Great Application Contest. First prize is awarded to Dr. Jason Schattman, for his entry Can a Square Roll?, an exploration of the "Renaissance Man of calculus problems", the square wheel problem. The runner-up is Prof. Mario Lemelin, for his Pré-test en Mathématique, a Maple-based questionnaire that lets beginning differential calculus students test their secondary school mathematics comprehension. These and many other Maple applications can of course be viewed on the Maple Application Center. Congratulations to both!

Got a Maple application that will knock our socks off? Something with cool images, elegant math, or just a great introduction to using Differential Equations? We want to see it!

Maplesoft is running a contest to find the best new Maple applications out there. To enter, simply contribute your document on the Maple Application Center, including the line “The Maplesoft Great Application Contest” in the Comments box. (However, all submissions to the Maple Application Center will automatically be considered.) Submissions must be received by January 15, 2008.

One grand prize will be awarded, consisting of one of:

Apple iPod Nano
Canon Powershot digital camera A460
4.5” (114mm) reflector telescope
Deluxe wooden chess set

Runner-up winners will receive their choice of:

Maplesoft laser pointer pen
Maplesoft mug
Maplesoft hat

Submission Guidelines:
Award-winning applications will:

Be created in Maple 11
Make use of the new Maple “Document Interface” including 2-D math input
Be well-formatted and laid out; for instance, you could use tables to format your document

They may additionally have some of the following characteristics:

Use Embedded Components
Use the “Point-and-Click” paradigm

Make sure your application includes instructions. Some things to consider while writing the instructions are whether the document can be modified and re-executed, if a user will interact with the document using Embedded Components, and whether a user needs to follow instructions to use interactive tools.

The following Maple documents are good examples of appropriate applications:

“Just Move it Over There, Dear!”
Classroom Tips and Techniques: Eigenvalue Problems for ODEs - Part 3
Double Wishbone Suspension

Some of the most significant members of Maplesoft’s math team are interviewed in this episode: Dr. Juergen Gerhard, Dr. Edgardo Cheb-Terrab and Dr. Allan Wittkopf, who give an inside look at just what is involved in designing and building sophisticated algorithms for advanced mathematics. They discuss symbolic computation, the new Physics package in Maple 11, Maple's DE and DAE solvers, future developments, and ballroom dancing.

The latest MapleCast episode, Can't Touch This, is now available on the Maplesoft website.

Stephanie Rozek (that's me) guest hosts as Tom Lee is out exploring new frontiers… Paul Goossens interviews a group from Quanser about their control solutions for industry, education and research.

MaplePrimes couldn’t exist without the generous contributions of many talented users. They answer others’ questions and post their own valuable insights and experiences for the rest of us to benefit from. In many ways you are true mentors. The MaplePrimes editors would like to acknowledge their contributions and to encourage others to be inspired by their leadership. We will be awarding a series of prizes for exceptional and continued contributions to this site.

In this episode, Tom Lee has an engaging conversation with Prof. Jack Weiner from the University of Guelph, about the impact of new math teaching tools and the appropriate use of emerging technology in the classroom. Jack is an award winning teacher and the author of "The Math Survival Kit”. Tom also sits down with Jan Bakus, a senior applications engineer at Maplesoft, to talk about BlockImporter and why someone in the simulation and modeling world should get excited about this new product.

Click here to get the latest episode.