- How did I figure out what equations to use?
Working on this project was a lot of train and error. I would pick an equation based on whether or not I needed some sort of straight or curved line and would pick an equation to start with. Usually, I did a good job of using the right function to match the shape of the line but there were multiple times where I simply couldn’t make an equation work, and would have to pivot, and change strategies. I would search for similar shapes in my picture and see if I could alter any previous equation.
- What Challenges did I face?
I don’t think I have ever run into so many problems while working on a school project in my life. That might seem a little bit overdramatic but I assure you that my friends and family can vouch for me as they saw what a hard time I had working on this. I came across the first big issue a little over a week before the due date when I realized that I had forgotten to change my equations into function notation. This was absolutely a stupid mistake on my part because before I started the project, I had read the instructions, but then quickly forgot about the function notation. After a day of tears and frustration at myself for now having to fix the whole thing, I got back to work. I had spent about a week fixing as much of the notation as possible, but then I knew that to get it done I had to start shading. This is when the second big problem occurred; I had left a portion of equations written as y=mx+b instead of solving for x (this is my best guess as to what went wrong but I’m honestly not sure what the problem was). I noticed this while shading because the inequalities weren’t working and I was getting warnings that my equations weren’t solvable. This really hit me hard because I knew I didn’t have the time to change them, especially since the functions contained other functions and it would have been difficult to sort everything out. This was the time when I had to accept that I had made it impossible for myself. I had created multiple small problems on a large scale, which if there was two more months I would be able to fix, but it wasn’t really an option at this point. I had accepted that desmos defeated me, or rather that past me had defeated myself. If I redid the desmos project, I would have been more careful at the start, and I would have checked my work with my friends throughout. The reason that I found this so frustrating was because the picture itself looked great; I was under the impression that I was doing everything right and that i was on the right track, only to realize a couple long weeks later that it had gone completely off the rails.
- Any Aha moments?
There was a problem at the start when I realized that my lines kept ending up as undefined, which really confused me, but after a little while of messing around, I realized that it was because I wasn’t using ‘less than OR EQUAL TO’ signs and just ‘less than’ signs. Once I fixed that, there weren’t any big aha moments as it kind of went down hill.
- Did I get help?
I did not get help at first because I thought everything was going well and I thought I had a good handle on the situation. Once I got stuck I would do a little bit of googling to figure out if I made errors somewhere, or to figure out a function I could use for a specific shape.
- What was my strategy?
My initial strategy was to do the outline minus the fire, shade the whole thing, and then hustle really hard to do the fire. This did not end up happening and so I don’t have a sin graph because it was going to go in the fire.
- How did this assignment help you understand more about transformations of functions and relations?
This project helped me practice my transformations, especially my vertical compressions and expansions because there were lots of parabolas. I also learned quite a bit about how function notation works and how much easier it would have been to use that front the start. It was a good way for me to practice transformations and it really got me thinking while building the equations. I think that this project has taught me more life lessons than math lessons, such as paying close attention to detail and being patient. I was also reminded how feeling bad only makes things worse and being in a good mindset can be the difference between getting things done or not.
Here is the link to the Desmos:
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/jn5yjmdrih