Overview

This class involves being creative with mathematics and realizing your creativity by creating digital art. There will be three main projects throughout the semester and a final portfolio for you to assemble, discuss, and display your artwork in a group setting.

The work that you submit for each project will be only one piece of art. However, as you work on your submission, you will be creating other pieces which serve as practice pieces or which explore other possible avenues that could have led to a submission. It is important to keep these unsubmitted works too. They will help you explain your process and your intentionality in the essay that is part of each project.

As a rule of thumb, make sure that you keep 3–5 additional pieces of art from each project. You will include these artworks in the final portfolio you create at the end of the semester. Furthermore, looking at all your artwork together will help you discuss your artistic evolution throughout the semester.

The first project is to create an image based on a family of related functions.

Specifications

The final product of this project will consist of:

• A digital image,
• A Desmos notebook, and
• A one-to-two-page writeup.

The digital image must:

• Be created by exporting a digital design from your Desmos notebook.
• Not include grid lines or coordinate axes.
• Use color intentionally.

The Desmos notebook must:

• Include the plot of one or more functions.
• Apply mathematical transformations to each function, involving one or more parameters.
• Use lists to specify the values of each parameter.

The one-to-two-page writeup must:

• Provide key details about your artwork, including the choices you made.
• Convey the mathematics behind the drawing and discuss how you stretched your knowledge.
• Using full sentences, proper English, and flow well.
• Use 1 inch margins, 1.5x spacing, and 11-point Times New Roman font.
• Include a separate cover page with the title of your artwork, your name, and the date.

Timeline

• Gain Expertise by Monday, September 20:

  By this day, you should have gained expertise with all the skills necessary to complete the project. This includes understanding function transformations, using Desmos to graph functions, incorporating function parameters and sliders into your Desmos graph, creating lists in Desmos, and incorporating lists into your parameters to create multiple transformed copies of your function.

• Explore Possibilities for Monday, September 27:

  By this day you should be exploring different properties that your artwork might have. Smooth? Angular? Linear? Periodic? Regular? Irregular? Intersecting? Asymptotic? Will you focus on the Negative space? Positive space? Save at least five different compositions and bring them to class to discuss.

• Final Draft by Monday, October 4:

  By this date, you are expected to have completed your project including writeup. You must complete a peer review activity with classmates no later than this evening.

• Project Due on Wednesday, October 6:

  By this day, turn in your project before class through the links provided on our Course Content page. Make sure to keep track of three to five other pieces to add to your final portfolio later in the semester. (Label them to make them easy to locate later.)

Grading

This project represents 10% of your semester grade. You will be graded on each of the following standards.

• Timeliness:
• Did you make steady progress on your project from start to finish, respecting project deadlines?
• Did you regularly attend the in-class work days, discuss your progress with classmates, and check in with the professor?
• Did you turn in your final project by the deadline?
• Desmos Notebook:
• Did you use the Desmos skills from class?
• Is the Desmos notebook well organized, with related parts grouped together into folders, with text cells to explain what each part is, and presented in a logical order?
• Desmos Notebook and Intentionality:
• Did you create a plot of one or more functions?
• Did you use transformations of functions to create your artwork?
• Did you use a list to create a family of transformations?
• Did you choose your colors carefully?
• Discussion of Mathematical and Functional Techniques:
• Have you explained how you arrived at the function(s) that forms the basis for your work?
• Have you explained how you determined which transformations you applied to your functions?
• Have you explained the programming methods (using sliders, lists, colors) in Desmos that you applied?
• Do you use technical terms like dilation, reflection, translation to explain your transformations? Are you using these technical terms correctly?
• Discussion of Artistic Qualities:
• Have you explained the artistic qualities you were going for in this piece?
• Are you using technical terms like we discussed in class to explain the artistic qualities?
• Have you explained the relationship between the artistic qualities and the mathematics you applied?
• Discussion of Process and Revisions:
• Have you explained your artistic process, including a discussion of how your piece changed over time?
• Have you explained how the peer review process impacted your final piece?
• Writing style and format:
• Does your artwork have a title?
• Did you use full sentences, use proper English, and do your paragraphs flow well?
• Did you follow the writing format requirements?
• Did you include a separate cover page with the title of your artwork, your name, and the date.

You will be assigned a score for each standard on an E-M-R-N scale as follows.

First I ask myself:

Does this work meet the expectations outlined in the standard?

If it does, then depending on how complete and clearly communicated your work is, you will receive one of the following scores:

E	Exemplary	The work meets or exceeds the expectations of the assignment. Communication is clear and complete. Mastery of the concepts is evident. There are no non-trivial errors in understanding.
M	Meets Expectations	Understanding of the concepts is evident through correct work and clear, audience-appropriate explanations. Some revision or expansion is needed, but no significant gaps or errors are present.

If it does not, then you have not demonstrated understanding of the concept. In this case, I will determine if you show partial understanding, and you will receive one of the following scores:

R	Revision Needed	Partial understanding of the material is evident, but there are significant gaps that remain. Needs further work, more review, and/or improved explanations.
N	Not Assessable	Not enough information is present in the work to determine if there is understanding of the concepts. Work is fragmentary or contains significant omissions. Or, there are too many issues to justify correcting each one.

Your final project grade will be based on the number of scores at each level as follows.
If you do not participate equally in the groupwork, your grade will be reduced accordingly.

A	(95+)	Earn a score of M or higher on all standards and a score of E on at least five standards.
B	(85)	Earn a score of M or higher on all standards and a score of E on at least two standards.
C	(75)	Earn a score of M or higher on five standards and no N scores.
D	(65)	Earn a score of M or higher on three standards and at most one N score.
F	(50–)	Have fewer than three E or M scores OR earn two or more N scores.

The second project is to use techniques from parametric functions to create digital artwork.

Specifications

The final product of this project will consist of:

• One exported SVG file.
• A Desmos notebook.
• A one-to-two-page writeup.

The exported SVG must:

• Be created by exporting a digital design from your Desmos notebook.
• Not include grid lines or coordinate axes.
• Involve a color palette with color(s) different from the standard Desmos colors.

The Desmos notebook must:

• Include the plot of one or more functions.
• Use a paramteric function technique such as linear interpolation or rotation transformations.
• Use lists to specify the values of each parameter.

The one-to-two-page writeup must:

• Provide key details about your artwork, including the choices you made.
• Convey the mathematics behind the drawing and discuss how you stretched your knowledge.
• Using full sentences, proper English, and flow well.
• Be at least one page and at most two pages.
• Use 1 inch margins, 1.5x spacing, and 11-point Times New Roman font.
• Include a cover page with the title of your artwork, your name, and the date.

Timeline

• Gain Expertise by Monday, November 8:

  By this day, you should have gained expertise with all the skills necessary to complete the project. This includes understanding parametric functions, using Desmos to graph them, basic transformations of parametric functions, rotations of parametric functions, linear transformations, and incorporating lists to create multiple transformed copies of your function, and modifying the color scheme of your work.

• Explore Possibilities by Wednesday, November 10:

  You should determine which artistic and design properties you want to develop in this project. Do you want to further investigate the same artistic and design properties you explored in Project 1? Or do you want to explore another aspect of art? Start implementing these properties in Desmos.

• Develop multiple directions for Monday, November 15:

  After exploring possibilities, focus on the creation of five different drawings. We will gather some feedback from classmates.

• Final Draft by Wednesday, November 17:

  By this date, you are expected to have completed your project including writeup. You must complete a peer review activity with classmates no later than the evening of Wednesday, November 17.

• Project Due on Monday, November 22:

  By this day, turn in your project before class through the links provided on our Course Content page. Make sure to keep track of three to five other pieces to add to your final portfolio later in the semester. (Label them to make them easy to locate later.)

Grading

This project represents 20% of your semester grade. You will be graded on each of the following standards.

• Timeliness:
• Did you make steady progress on your project from start to finish, respecting project deadlines?
• Did you regularly attend the in-class work days, discuss your progress with classmates, and check in with the professor?
• Did you turn in your final project by the deadline?
• Mathematical Components:
• Did you plot one or more parametric functions?
• Did you use a parametric function technique such as linear interpolation or rotation transformations?
• Did you use a different color scheme than the standard Desmos color scheme?
• Desmos Notebook:
• Did you use the Desmos skills we discussed in class?
• Did you present the content in your Desmos notebook in a logical order?
• Did you organize your Desmos notebook using folders to group related parts together?
• Did you use text cells to explain the functions you are using and the transformations you are doing?
• Topic Quality:
• Does the subject level of your project match your level of expertise in the subject?
• Does the complexity of your project match your level of computer programming background?
• Does the project show your advancement from the first project?
• Discussion of Mathematical and Functional Techniques:
• Have you explained how you arrived at the function(s) that forms the basis for your work?
• Have you explained how you determined which transformations you applied to your functions?
• Have you explained the programming methods in Desmos that you applied?
• Discussion of Artistic Qualities:
• Have you explained your choice of colors?
• Have you explained the artistic qualities you were going for in this piece?
• Have you explained the relationship between the artistic qualities and the mathematics you applied?
• Discussion of Process and Revisions:
• Have you discussed artistic choices you made and how they differ from other choices you could have made?
• Have you explained your artistic process, including a discussion of how your piece changed over time?
• Have you explained how the peer review process impacted your final piece?
• Writing style and format:
• Does your artwork have a title?
• Did you use full sentences, use proper English, and do your paragraphs flow well?
• Did you follow the writing format requirements?

You will be assigned a score for each standard on an E-M-R-N scale as above.

Your final project grade will be based on the number of scores at each level as follows.

A	(95+)	Earn a score of M or higher on all standards and a score of E on at least six standards.
B	(85)	Earn a score of M or higher on all standards and a score of E on at least two standards.
C	(75)	Earn a score of M or higher on six standards and no N scores.
D	(65)	Earn a score of M or higher on four standards and at most two N scores.
F	(50–)	Have fewer than four E or M scores OR earn three or more N scores.