There are many different aspects to this holiday card, from the Christmas stockings on the fireplace to the pulsing star on top of the tree.
I encountered many obstacles on the way to making this project but it was always satisfying to overcome them. My first obstacle was making the letter R. I played around with different formulas. I could’ve used square root, but instead settled with making two semi-circles and using domain restrictions to make them look like the curve of an “R” because it provided a more rounder curve. Google and YouTube were really useful for finding the equations I wanted and special formulas such as the rotated eclipses for my ears.
I found the concept of shading on desmos challenging but also very interesting, sometimes the graphed equations wouldn’t overlap how I would want it to so I would have to break it down into smaller equations using domain and range restrictions that would’ve fit my need.
Being able to create animations by having a constantly changing variable was also really cool. One of my friends had used it to create “moving animated fire” and immediately an idea popped into my head to have the light around the star of the Christmas tree be animated by having the ring get bigger and bigger and then go small again. Also I thought I could create animated snow by creating the illusion of falling snowflakes by having many different individual “snowflakes” flash on and off by making the variable shift between 0 and 1.
The planning was quite effortless but the challenge was actually executing it and the time it would take. I think I did a good job recreating what I had envisioned in the beginning. After over 500 equations later, I can look back and say that this was a really fun project, being able to play around with all the different numbers and equations that we have learned this semester, and it was exactly what I needed to keep my mind sharp during the break.
Find my Christmas card here!
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/zvngkdsvld
“Santa Hat” created by Patricia Concepcion
Source: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/gi874wy84d?fbclid=IwAR1FWF9hfLVp5jy9kMh9Y1mv6GtzjNvAIrt0CryzGiX3qdix7Y19NkZ8r-Q (sorry Patricia I know this wasn’t your final copy)
“Christmas Stockings” created JU P6
Source: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/bhyw3t2sdl?fbclid=IwAR1FWF9hfLVp5jy9kMh9Y1mv6GtzjNvAIrt0CryzGiX3qdix7Y19NkZ8r-Q