For my Desmos Project, I decided to graph the cartoon “Bluey”

Link to the Desmos Page

1. How did I figure out what equations to use?

Before beginning my project, I familiarized myself with the functions that were available to me. I searched for how I could transform different functions and looked at examples provided by Desmos and YouTube videos. My research made the process of choosing various equations much easier as I could plan ahead for my next steps while graphing. In the beginning, deciding what to use to create different shapes was quite challenging. Choosing between other options began to come naturally to me after I got further along with my project.

 

2. Did you have any challenges?

Having to start from complete scratch to replicate the drawing I chose was undoubtedly a challenge. I wasn’t familiar with Desmos before, meaning I had to begin by searching everything up. This research included how to write my functions and how to fit my restrictions. My first task was getting familiar with the website, playing around with sliders, finding shortcuts, and getting creative on how I could combine functions to create different shapes. For example, the pupils of my characters look like slanted ellipses. Instead of manually finding an equation for a slanted ellipse, I learned to combine circles, parabolas, and linear lines to create a smooth shape that resembled a slanted ellipse. In the beginning, this was very hard for me as I was very close-minded about how I could use different functions. To begin getting somewhere with my project, I had to start thinking creatively about every function I chose. I devised various ways to tie parts together and use restrictions to turn an equation into new shapes. After a while, it became easier to come up with what functions I could use to recreate the drawing. Another example is the patch of stomach fur on Ginger’s body. Since I had already spent a month on the project, I was already familiar with the different functions I could choose from and how to incorporate them uniquely. Therefore, I quickly concluded that I could use a combination of exponential graphs and linear lines to create the outline for that piece.

 

3. Any aha moments?

Shading was the problem that stumped me the most throughout the project. In the beginning, I watched many YouTube videos, tweaked with inequalities on my own, and asked my friends. However, I still couldn’t understand how to shade. However, I had a huge “aha” moment when I asked Pahlevanlu. After going over how to shade a small part of Bluey’s ear, I was able to complete the shading of my entire project. Pahlevanlu showed me that I had to remove the subscripts on the x values of all my functions. I added these subscripts at the beginning of my project while I was still lost about how to use Desmos. The 20-30 minutes I spent learning from Pahlevanlu got rid of my need for the extra YouTube videos, which didn’t make sense to me. It was like my brain finally clicked, and I was able to cruise through the shading of my project. In the end, shading wasn’t too complex, just time-consuming. The only challenge of shading is having to creatively shade certain parts, which requires some thought.

 

4. Did you get help?

Yes, I received help from two individuals specifically. As I mentioned before, Pahlevanlu helped me a lot with the shading of my project. Aside from Pahlevanlu, Makayla Stark also helped me enormously with the making of my project. Because of her, I could sit for hours writing the functions for my drawing. We would plan to meet at our houses or cafés to set aside time and get work done. She helped me be motivated with my project as it was nice to have someone beside me struggling with the same challenges. We could help each other when the other was stuck and learn new shortcuts together, which saved us time. As I always had someone I could ask questions to, I wouldn’t have to wait until the next day to ask questions in class or spend hours researching tips on YouTube. Working alongside my friend made me use my time wisely and cut down on the time I had to work on my project in the grand scheme of things.

 

5. Did you use any strategies?

Working alongside my friend, YouTube, Desmos provided examples, my textbook, and setting aside a lot of time for my work helped me get through this project. The worst thing an individual can do for this project is to attempt to complete it without outside help. It is also essential to space out your project, so you don’t get overwhelmed with work, which I saw happen to many people. Your drawing should also be realistic, not too simple, but complex enough that you aren’t using the same functions for the entirety. Sliders were a big help for me; putting points to the exact decimal can be challenging, especially when you can’t find the perfect coordinates for where you want your function. I used a combination of functions with sliders and without, which saved me a lot of time and stress, especially near the end of my line art.

 

6. How did this assignment help you understand more about transformations of functions and relations?

As I was constantly making new functions and tweaking with transformations, I began recognizing different functions and how I could manipulate them to become the shape I needed. Especially when shading, I learnt a lot about inequalities, which I had previously forgotten. Shading definitely taught me the most, as I learnt how to stack restrictions to shade different parts I needed. If I didn’t learn how to stack my restrictions, I would’ve had to complicate my project even more, which would’ve wasted a lot of time. This project has been very time-consuming, but it has made me comfortable with my transformation and graphing skills. As this assignment helped me practice a lot of graphing and transformations, it helped me with the revision I did for the math final. I didn’t have to review many of the graphing portions of our course, as I had already been studying through my work on Desmos.