UNIT 4: Data Representation and Unit 5: Equations and Graphs

This is a picture of my class doing the algebra walk. Look there's me wearing the blue shirt!



How are transformations used in art?  

             Transformations can be used in art in order to create unique patterns and repetitive images. Translations can be added into art if you can picture a coordinate plane on your artwork and 'plot' the ordered pairs and form the shapes and images. If you look closely at this artwork called 'Panama' on page 235 in the Integrated Mathematics 1 McDougal Littell textbook, you can see that there are repetitive images of something that shapes like an arrow that can be slid across the artwork. The artist included translations into his work by picturing a coordinate plane on this work and slowly copying the same figures and sliding them.

                                                                   

             

                              You can also incorporate rotation into art as you can use the center of an image as the center point and slowly rotate your image while your pencil is on the center point. After that, you will have new coordinates which can be used to draw the same image but rotated. If you examine the bottom left side of the Japanese fabric (page 275), you can see that rotation is involved as the the spirals, blue and dark blue triangles can be moved around to fit the same spots. So translations and rotations can used to create designs in art by using the coordinate plane and other tools such as the polar circle graph.

                             Using the same example above, if you look at the bottom right fabric, you can see that flip is involved in the picture as the white rectangular shapes can be turned over and matched. For this, the artist finds the line of symmetry and tries to make the identical shape but at a different position. If you put the line of symmetry at the middle of the fabric (horizontally), you can see that the top rectangle fits exactly onto the bottom rectangle. Thus, flip is shown in this Japanese fabric and line of symmetry is used to create designs in art for flips. So to conclude, many transformations can be incorporated through art in various methods and ways.

Here is the link to my video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZS-HaOvpto

                                                    Gizmo, The Robot - Unit 4 Project (Speed Up Version)

 

My project demonstrates 'thinking creatively' and 'reasoning critically'. This is because I had to be imaginative and think of which character to perform my year-long plans and I had to think in a sensible way as fifth graders will be reading my flip book. When I first started drawing figures, I had to come up with an interesting character in order to make the children have fun skimming through the pages. Gizmo, the robot was created in a creative way as I searched up images of robots on Google then copied some parts and incorporated into a body. I reasoned critically as I had to come up with ways to show someone saving electricity through motion. Even though my equations aren't straight line functions, I still managed to use simple equations and show movement. So this is how these SLR's are connected into my flip book.

For the long-term projects and homework for this unit, I have been using my time wisely and showing my work. I try to do most of my homework on the day when I had math as I could continue remembering what I did on the class. This helps me academically as I could understand and remember key information about equations and graphs. I make sure that I show my work and check in my homework and try to do some parts of the project everyday. For the Unit 4-5 project, I spent at least 5 pages and I managed to finish the whole drawing in 2 weeks.  I balance this with homework for other classes as I first finish my work and then relax during my leisure time. So these are the steps how I complete my assignments.

 

This is a picture of my table group members correcting our homework by using the text books.