Calculator Art (a picture on the handheld) TI84 to Nspire

[tmb]

Calc-Art

I (Travis) have a student project called Calc-Art where the students
create a program that makes art--on the TI84. I have done this for
over a decade and have overseen some sophisticated programs/art.

I now want to adapt it to the Nspire, which I am new to (but I'm
delving). I have/had my students use a For-loop (rather than
DrawFunc) which allows them to control the domain, increment and
direction (left-to-right, down-to-up, etc.) It also allows for
graphing relations (just switch the x & y--> a reflection over the
line y=x)
I have a handout which has some examples, directions, hints,
animation, 62x94 grid, rubric, etc.; glad to share it.

The primary way of graphing is/was as follows:
For(x, -10, 40, 5)
PtOn(x, 0.5x+4)
End

I plan to use piecewise functions for the old For-loop or maybe go
parametric.
I assume I am abandoning the 84-program-format and going Nspire-File--
>Graph page with 99 functions, Notes, Lists and not using a program,
but I'm still clinging to the 'run just one program' mentality. I
need to keep it simple for the newcomers, but allow room for the go-
getters.....

I can do the following on the 84, but don't know how (if/yet) on the
Nspire:

1 How do I space out the pixels? (I used to use the increment with
TI84)
2 How do I graph from right-to-left? (maybe change x to -x as in a
reflection across the y-axis?)
3 How do I graph a relation? (like a vertical sine curve, use
parametric mode?)
4 Can I still have text move across the screen (banner, marquee)?
control the speed?
5 How do I turn on and/or off individual pixels? I really want this
feature (I thought maybe piecewise, but can't do f1(x) {7,x=4) to plot
(4, 7)
6 Can I graph text in a certain location on the graph?
7 Any counterpart to the three stat-plot symbols?
8 Presentation...How do I begin with a blank screen and run the File
(and/or program)? We want to see the art unfold.
9 If the art is done via 99-function-method, can I slow it down?
10 Any tricks/tips with Hide/Show?
11 Suggested window settings to correlate with pixels? (or is that old-
skool now?) (for the 84 I did -47 to 47 and -31 to 31)
12 Anyone recommend using the Lists and Stat plot features i.e.
anything here kind of cool and nifty for this art project?


Other
A The 84 allowed bitmap files to be sent to the device. Any way I can
transfer a picture/photo/logo/jpeg onto the Nspire?
B I'd like the students to be able to print the program's code and
place in a binder; but they can't with the free Link software. Maybe
I make an online binder?
C Now for you giants out there (I'm ready to stand on your shoulders)
What are some things the Nspire can easily do that I haven't thought
of....(like the ability to mix in a polar spiral :), sliders,
D Anyone familiar with the programming book for TI82/3 Mathematical
Peep Shows? I'd like try some of those programs



(I will try attach a sample program YUM for those unfamiliar with calc-
art)


I've tried to do some research and found the following. If you know
of some other resources, by all means, link me! I'm looking for
someone who has traveled this route and can expedite my
peregrinations.
Sean Bird -- your reasons to go Nspire vs 84 were helpful/
encouraging. I did not see a link for your student handout, however.
(Pam Burke has not adopted Nspire.) Your USA flag is my goal--any
info appreciated--could you post the .tns file or send it to me?
Slider primers?

Pat Flynn -- do you have a handout you give your students for Graph
Family? Also, any tips/tricks on copy-pasting the code of their
program would be helpful. I have my students annotate their program
(they cut/paste the code into a table in Word and then type comments
in the next column. this then goes into a binder for others to learn
from)

thanks for any and all comments
Travis

[Eric Findlay]

Nelson or Steve or some of the others may have some neat tricks to help
you with this, but for a straight up answer, the answer to most of your
questions is that you can't.

Due to the way the Nspire's G&G app is designed - focusing on geometry
and graphs and the manipulation of the shapes and functions, as opposed
to free-style drawing and art (which is how graphing was done on the 84)
- it does not support single pixel manipulation. Also, the pixels on
the Nspire are much, much smaller than they were on 83/84, so lighting
up one pixel would not be easy to see.

1) One thing you can do is change what type of line is used to graph.
If you ctrl+menu on the function and select "Attributes," the second box
down will let you change between solid, dotted and dashed lines.

3) I'm pretty sure someone here has done this. Hopefully they will
share it again, but you could always try looking here:
http://lafacroft.com/archive/nspire.php

4) Not really. A work around would be to link the text to a point, and
the point to a slider, then move the slider to move the text. Also, I
seem to recall animation being possible on the Nspire, but I never
figured that out. I think Nelson would know.

6) You can't really "graph" text, but you can place text and move it
around. Check out the link above for some examples on how to do that.

8) You can switch from the graphing view to the geometry view for a
blank page, and when you switch back, the graphs will be redrawn.
However, this may not work as you expect because the processor in the
Nspire is much, much, much faster than the 84. The "unfolding" of
graphs that you describe was a by-product of a slow processor and
inefficient method of graphing.

A) Only if you embed it in a note using the teacher edition of the
computer software, then send it to your students.

B) You can sort of do this with the Computer Software. Unfortunately,
you can only print what's showing on the screen at the time, so a long
program would take several prints. The good news is that because of
monitor resolutions, more lines are visible than on the unit itself.

I hope this was helpful in some way. Again, check out that link for
programming and graphing hints and tricks, and hopefully some of the
others will respond to this as well.

--
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor
demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
- Romans 8:38-39 (NIV)
--
Eric Findlay
AKA Eagle-Man

On 08/12/2009 9:18 PM, tmb wrote:
>
> Calc-Art
>
> I (Travis) have a student project called Calc-Art where the students
> create a program that makes art--on the TI84. I have done this for
> over a decade and have overseen some sophisticated programs/art.
>
> I now want to adapt it to the Nspire, which I am new to (but I'm
> delving). I have/had my students use a For-loop (rather than
> DrawFunc) which allows them to control the domain, increment and
> direction (left-to-right, down-to-up, etc.) It also allows for

> graphing relations (just switch the x& y--> a reflection over the

> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 9.0.709 / Virus Database: 270.14.99/2553 - Release Date: 12/08/09 11:54:00
>

[Nelson Sousa]

A lot of questions... I'll try to answer them all...

1) you don't, really. Nspire graphs in a totally different way than
the 84 Plus. E.g., you can't see holes in graphs. On the other hand it
quite easily plots piecewise defined functions with 2 or more branches
(see the mathematical templates. Another idea is using scatter plots
generated by seq commands and defining those scatter plots to also
plot the lines between points. You can even plot several geometric
figures with appropriate scatter plots and inserting void elements
here and there (see the powerpoint of my presentation at the October
KYTN meeting - it's available on www.nelsonsousa.pt)

2) Right-to-left graphing: only with parametrics plots where y(t) =
-f(t) and x(t) = -t; But you don't see the plot being drawn, the
Nspire plots using a series of passes over the domain, it's not
"progressive" (euphemism for slow) as the TI-84.

3) Parametric plots is the way to go here.

4) Yes. Create a point over a segment that goes from left to right.
E.g. on zoom standard, you have xmin=-10 and xmax=10; have a
horizontal segment drawn from x=-13 and x=13 (edit the coordinates of
the endpoints); then place a point over that segment. With Attributes,
change the animation properties of that point. Beware that the
animation starts on the point where you edited the attributes, so I
suggest doing the following:
- zoom out;
- hide the endpoints of the segment;
- drag the point to animate to the far left of the segment;
- edit the attributes to animate (speed can go from 1 to 12, a speed
of x means x% at each step)
- zoom in back to the default settings;
Then you can do the following : animate the point until it's within
view; with the text tool write down a number (any positive number, I
reccommend 1; draw a circle centered on the animated point with radius
equal to that number (click the point, then the number). Label that
circle with the text you want; edit the text box to 0. Now you have a
circle of radius 0 (hence, invisible). Hide the point and the segment.
Start the animation.

5) You don't. You can, however, have them turn on/off using scatter
plots and setting the attributes of the scatter plot to be only a
pixel for each point.

6) Yes, using the same trick as in 4 but without the animation part.
To display / hide the text you can link the point's coordinates to
variables and have those variables appear and disappear from sight or
become undefined. E.g., when(some_var <= some_value, some_number,
undef); calculating this formula will give you some_number when the
condition is true and undefined when it's false; transfer the result
to the x-axis; draw a perpendicular to the axis by that point and
create a point on the line at the height you want it. Use this last
point as the center of the r=0 circle. When condition true, value is
some_number, points exist, circle exists, label is visible; when
condition is false, result is undef, the points disappear, so does the
circle and the text message.

7) On the G&G page you only have scatter plots and line plots; I
usually build histograms using geometric constructions (vertical rays
and measurement transfers ad nauseum). I usually also manipulate the
data to have the scale I want.

8) Programs can only be run from the Calculator app. Just add a
calculator page and call the program (use the var menu if needed)

9) don't use programs, use functions. Functions can be called from the
spreadsheet and its results used to define/manipulate dynamically
other columns, which can in turn be plotted as a scatter plot. Now, to
slow things down: every now and then add this:
for i,1,1000
100!
endfor
This should slow things down for 1 or 2 seconds; change the parameters
at will (it won't slow down the computer software, though)

10) not really. But as your constructions grow bigger you'll learn
that hide/show is essential

11) if you want a square screen, the ratio is 3:2. I particularly like
x from -9 to 9 and y from -6 to +6 or x from -15 to 15 and y from -10
to +10. as long as the ratio is kept, circles will be circles.

12) on the KYTN meeting I used lists and scatter plots to draw a US
flag. I think this ranks as "neat". See the powerpoint presentation,
it will teach you all the steps needed


A) No, there's no way.
B) only with computer version of Nspire software.
C) Nice stuff the Nspire can do? Oh, let me count the ways... one, one
thousand, two, one thousand, three (btw, haven't seen Roger Rabbit in
a while, I should get the movie sometime). Start slow, see as many
documents as you can and try to develop little by little. From my
experience, I started about two years ago developing complex stuff and
when I look back to my early documents, they're soooo lame! Even
documents that became popular last winter are now soooo outdated.
Everytime you develop something you learn something.
D) I don't know the book, can't help you with that. But some programs
may be "converted" to "nspire language", with the proper techniques
and tricks.


Oh, another tip: starting with Sean's page go to the bookmarks section
and visit all those sites; then go to the links page of all those
sites and open all the links. After 2 or 3 levels you should have
reached the entire Nspire community. See all the files available, get
some insight as to how they work and go from there.


Cheers,
Nelson

[Sean Bird]

The FlagUSA.tns is available in the google group files http://groups.google.com/group/tinspire/files
Sorry I don't have a handout or complicated rubric. I did the activity that you read about with a goup of about 10 students. With the Nspire this activity became even more about exploring functions (and other graphs like polar and parametric on the same screen) then programing. Transformation rules were discovered by freshmen and sophomores long before they received teacher-led instruction in the regular math classes.

As Nelson outlined, to animate (one method is) construct a segment and put a point on that segment. Measure the length that point is from the end of the segment. Hover over the measurement. Press CTRL+Menu (right click on the software) to store this variable. (Often two letters for a variable name are better than one.)
Then right-click again on that point. Move down to where you see the number 0. Type a different number, like -5, 7 (I think anything between -12 and postive 12) or use the + and - to change the speed.
Then if you make f1(x) = sin(x+d)
you can make f2(x)=f2(x) +3

See below for a few more comments.

On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 12:18 AM, tmb <tbo...@dphs.org> wrote:

I can do the following on the 84, but don't know how (if/yet) on the
Nspire:

4 Can I still have text move across the screen (banner, marquee)?
control the speed?

See the attached for a little marque I tested out. For speed see the instructions above.
 

5 How do I turn on and/or off individual pixels? I really want this
feature (I thought maybe piecewise, but can't do f1(x) {7,x=4) to plot
(4, 7)

I tried that and it did work. Since a point in infinitely small you can't always see it (depending on the window, but you may be able to trace and see it.
 

6 Can I graph text in a certain location on the graph?

Right-click (ctrl menu) and choose text.
 

7 Any counterpart to the three stat-plot symbols?

Attributes > there are many point styles to choose from.
 

8 Presentation...How do I begin with a blank screen and run the File
(and/or program)?  We want to see the art unfold.

Hmm, I have an idea, but I haven't tested it. Let's say you animated a point. As it moves along the length progressively gets larger. Using some when statements, like
when(length>2.5,1)  Store the 1 that comes as an output as a variable, e.g. "go". Have the function that you want to appear be mulitplied by go. Nothing will appear until "go" is defined.
Do this for each function, but with bigger and bigger lengths.  

 

Other
A The 84 allowed bitmap files to be sent to the device.  Any way I can
transfer a picture/photo/logo/jpeg onto the Nspire?

Not currently. It is probably good to hear about teachers wanting to be able to do this and what the reasons are.
 

B I'd like the students to be able to print the program's code and
place in a binder; but they can't with the free Link software.  Maybe
I make an online binder?

Have you heard about TI-Connect-to-Class or TI-Nspire Navigator. This is a great way to easily collect files.
It may be educationally beneficial for them to write down the functions/graph equations.

Sean Bird -- your reasons to go Nspire vs 84 were helpful/
encouraging.

thanks
 

  Your USA flag is my goal--any
info appreciated--

The shadded regions on the flag are created with a many pointed polygon and then Attributes > shade.
The 'stars' are point that are on the sine curves = Point On

[bigjeffmemphis]

Travis,
Hey. I just uploaded three files that you might like to see.
1. smiley face.tns file.
This is an example of how to use animation to make each function piece
'draw' the picture. It will be slower on the handheld. There are
directions in the document on how to create it. (You could also
control the step with a minimized slider if you wanted to see each
step a little slower).

2. Graphic design project.docx.
I first saw this activity from Corey Bobby on the TI-84. This is
the adaptation that I used in my algebra II class. It was a project
right after teaching conics. I've done it on the 84 and TI-Nspire,
and it is much easier on the TI-Nspire.

3. Graphic design project pics.docx.
These are screenshots of student work. Notice how much better the
resolution is compared to the TI-84
jeff

[Pat Flynn]

Travis,
I use Tom Reardon's handout out on this. It can be found at

http://www.austintown.k12.oh.us/~aust_tr/homework/quickfiles/Basic%20Graph%20Pictures%20Nspire%202008/

It does a great job of outlining how to restrict the domain.