Parabolic Beams
I love thinking of parabolas as being formed with a directrix and focus. Coming from a background in trajectory analysis, I find the abstract relationships of the curve to the point and line beautiful. When a light shines through the focus of a parabolic mirror, the light reflected is orthogonal to
Swirled Series Challenge
I decided to join Craig S. Kaplan’s Swirled Series Challenge. I played the last two nights and have some draft GIFs below. I don’t have a ton of time, but it’s stuff like this that relaxes me at night. I look forward to seeing what people come up with. I still need to export a […]
Fantasy Maps to Planets
For those that have created fantasy maps using previous posts here, in classes, or elsewhere in Worldbuilding, D&D, or art, I created a small script to see your maps as spherical planets. You can click to rotate and move the mouse off the canvas to have rotation. You may want to draw a map that […]
SA9: Quadrant Play
This Scripting Algebra (SA) activity looks at quadrants, mouse location, and interactive art p5.js. This activity assumes that the skills from SA1-SA8 were introduced (if-else, logical operators, random(), text(), rect(), variables, loop, pow, for, functions, translate, modulo, etc.). This activity
Parallel to a Parabola
I received a question today about what curve is parallel to a parabola. I sat for a minute and realized that it wasn’t another parabola. It required parametric equations (at least if you wanted to keep it simple). That of course lead to code: See the Pen jOqzMJb by Sophia (@fractalkitty) on CodePen.
SA8: Odd and Even
This Scripting Algebra (SA) activity uses even and odd polynomials to create generative art in p5.js. This activity assumes that the skills from SA1-SA7 were introduced (if-else, logical operators, random(), text(), rect(), variables, loop, pow, for, functions, translate etc.). This activity will in
SA7: Directrix and Focus
This Scripting Algebra (SA) activity uses parabolas again to make generative art in p5.js. In SA6, we used the f(x) = ax2+bx+c form for parabolas. In SA7, we are going to take a look at the directrix and focus by using the form: (x-h)2 = 4p(y-k). This is one of my favorite ways to look […]
SA6: Parabola Art
This Scripting Algebra (SA) activity uses parabolas to make generative art in p5.js. Learners will investigate existing code to analyze changes in parabolas, and other features of the output. This activity assumes that the skills from SA1-SA5 were introduced (if-else, logical operators, random(), te
SA5: Systems of Equations
This Scripting Algebra (SA) activity will play with systems of linear equations in p5.js. In this activity, a system of two random lines will be generated and the intersection (or solution) of those lines will be calculated to make generative art. It is recommended to introduce creating functions if
SA4: Perpendicular Play
This Scripting Algebra (SA) activity will introduce students to perpendicular slopes and points for lines in p5.js. Once students get comfortable with linear functions, it is fun to look at their perpendicular counterparts. Introduce the concept that a perpendicular line has a slope that is a negati
