My early math education was based on these rods, as well as a stackable Lego-like plastic clone[0]. I used to think it didn't have very much impact. But in ret

My early math education was based on these rods, as well as a stackable Lego-like plastic clone[0]. I used to think it didn't have very much impact. But in retrospect, I think it really opened my young mind to math as spatial reasoning. It wasn't long before I could visualize the answer, or at least a very close approximation, to complex algebra much more quickly than I could do actual calculations. [0] http://www.mathusee.com/ http://www.mathusee.com/