A Recursive Process

This is a continuation of the workflow series: part 1part 2, and part 3

This workflow was done entirely in the web browser and could be done on a chromebook. The only step that requires a more serious computer is sending the file to your 3D printer. Also, writing up this blog post took t...

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Workflow: Desmos -> Inkscape -> Laser Cutter

September 8, 2016, 12:00 am

This is a continuation of the workflow series: part 1 and part 2.

Motivation

Have students create mathematical art in Desmos and bring that digital art into the physical world using a laser engraver. You can certainly bring any image from Desmos and engrave it into an object using a laser en...

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I asked the above question, If you had a friend taking this class next year, what advice would you give them?, to the outgoing PreCalculus H group last year. I’m giving the incoming PreCalculus H their responses. Here’s a link to all the responses, and here are some of the absolute jewels. (No e...

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Note: this post is a more advanced version of the previous post and uses slightly different software. All this software is free and open-source.
In this post I’m going to outline how to use a workflow to go from a desmos sketch to a processing sketch to Fiji to a 3D file. The basic idea of...

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The seniors don’t go to school on the last day, so I had calculus class on Friday with one student (a junior). We went down to the innovations lab to create things. Here’s what we worked on:

Took this sketch from dailydesmos:

2016-04-21_07h38_06

I had the student work on the solution after talking about superell...

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I’ve been interested in the intersection between Math and Programming ever since I taught my first programming course 12 years ago (call it coding, CS, whatever you’d like). I think I’m finally starting to figure it out. Maybe. I was prodded by Dan Meyer and Julia Tsygan to think more in detail abou...

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What to do post AP/IB exam?

May 1, 2016, 12:00 am

With the IB exams coming up soon, I’ve started to put more thought into what we should do after the exams (we’ll have 8 blocks or so). For the past three years we did free-form math projects and last year they even wrote up great blog posts about their projects. But due to less time left (we used...

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The Mango Gates – Puzzler

February 14, 2016, 12:00 am

From Car Talk:

RAY: This Puzzler came from Kevin Tobin. A maharajah owned a mango tree that had very sweet, abundant fruit. People would come from miles around to pick the fruit. So the maharajah decided to protect the tree by erecting a series of seven concentric fences around it. Each fence had...

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3d Representation of Dog Chase

November 13, 2015, 12:00 am

Not what it sounds like.
The four dog problem from Steve Strogatz:


Here is how it was used in my c...

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The Last Seat : Car Talk Puzzler

November 9, 2015, 12:00 am

Yet another great car talk puzzler, The Last Seat:

RAY: You’re one of a hundred people standing in line to get onto an airplane that has 100 seats. There’s a seat for every person who’s in line, and each of you has a boarding pass for your assigned a seat. The first person to walk onto the pla...

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