Animation of a composite drawing

[Steve New]

I looked at the math activities and am interested in creating the animated ferris wheel.

However, I am having trouble making the chairs move around the circle without changing shape.

Does coloring the polygon interior cause the shape to stay fixed as if the line segments are grouped as one?

The problem I'm having is that only the points designated to move around the circle move.... not the chair as a whole unit.

Also, I am having trouble finding how to create a polygon interior in the GSP 4.07. I can't find it in the drop down menus.

Please advise.

Steve

[Scott Steketee]

Hi Steve,

First, to make the Ferris wheel chairs keep their shapes, you must create a shape that depends only on a single point: the point at which the chair attaches to the wheel.

For instance, you could translate this point downward by an appropriate distance to define the height of the chair, and then translate that point left and right to define the left and right edges of the chair. A few additional points, using similar translations, will create a pleasing shape. By using translations that start from the attachment point, the chair's size and shape won't change as the attachment point rotates.

To make several chairs, you can either repeat this construction several times, or you can turn it into a custom tool.

Finally, to create a polygon interior, select the points that are the vertices of your polygon. With the vertices selected, the Construct menu contains the appropriate interior command. Depending on the number of points, the actual command may be "Triangle Interior" or "Pentagon Interior" or (if you've selected more than 6 points) "Polygon Interior."

I hope this helps.

Happy Sketching,
-Scott

Scott Steketee
Sketchpad Projects

On 6/28/09 4:21 PM, "Steve New" <Stev...@ymail.com> wrote:

> However, I am having trouble making the chairs move around the circle without
> changing shape.
>