This year's J-term added a bit of color (or colour for my international friends) to their Graphing Art project. The picture to the left was done by Sarah who is quite interested in NASA. The stars are 'polar roses' translated vertically and horizontally using parametric and the truth that x=r*cos(angle) and y=r*sin(angle). The comet was animated. This may have partially been inspired by the brief NASA Now program we watched.Since we became a NASA Explorer School we have also done a number of NASA activities including Exploring Space through Math's Weightless Wonder activity. The NASA Weightless Wonder Nspire file made it so they could do the activity paperlessly and with additional exploratory capabilities.
Another student whose brother attends Kettering did her picture of their mascot. Kettering is known for their co-ops which have even included co-ops with NASA. Besides the impressive quartic Kristen used for the head, I was also impressed with the oblique absolute value she used for the teeth - see the 22nd function f22(x). This activity definitely improves students' understand of transformations.
Kettering University mascot is the bulldogs.As in previous years we did do a little data collection outside and may go out in the snow again tomorrow.
