Basis of a matroid

A matroid is kind of like a pattern. It's a set of objects that can be connected in certain ways. To understand matroids, it helps to think about a game you might play as a kid. In this game, you would have a bunch of puzzle pieces, and you would try to fit them together in different ways to make different shapes. Each combination of pieces was like its own "pattern." That's what a matroid is like: each matroid is a set of pieces with its own specific pattern. The pieces in a matroid could be anything, like points or lines or shapes or colors. You could have a matroid of shapes, so all the pieces fit together to form a star or a heart or something.