One of the challenges I had when doing this project was the function notation. I didn’t fully understand how it worked and was confused on how to use it for a little while. I was able to ask a friend who understood it better and they. Helped me create the original functions which I would then transform without having to re-write the whole equation. Another challenge I had was the colouring of the worm. The colouring of the mushroom was quite a bit easier, as lots of the functions were semi-circles and ellipses, but the worm had lots more functions to worry about. The worm’s body is made up a few sine graphs and lots of smaller line in order to have everything work together better, as well as having the curves as close as possible to the original photo.
My aha moment I had was when I learnt to properly use function notation. After understanding function notation better, the project went pretty smoothly, though messing with the functions and equations took a while. Another aha moment I had was with the colouring. At first, I couldn’t understand how to create my own colours, but after looking at the website Pahlevanlu gave us, I realized I had been typing it in wrong.
As previously mentioned, my friend was able to make me understand the use of function notation, which played a huge role in my competition of this project. When I was confused, or unable to figure something out, I usually went to google to see if there was a video or article I was able to look at a figure out the problem for myself.
I wouldn’t say I necessarily had any strategies for this project, though I always tried to work through any problems on my own before having to ask someone else. I also did a lot of guess and check as it is a bit difficult to know exactly what equation or function to use.
This project helped me understand transformations a lot better. Before, my knowledge on transformations wasn’t the best, but this project helped re-teach me some of the things I hadn’t fully understood in the past. After finishing this project, I think understand a lot more as I figured out how to move functions left and right, up and down, as well as stretching or compressing. Overall I think I enjoyed this project, though there were some very tedious parts that I am glad are done with.
Here is a link to my full project on desmos: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/70w1tbdapz