In addition to materials provided through the Summer Workshop, such as software and lecture notes, I've found resources and developed activities used at Coelho Middle School which might be useful in high school as well as middle school:
Click here for a Primal Scream
Optical illusions were used to illustrate depth perception, persistence of vision, animation and color vision. In addition to existing software and textual material, software for the Atari eight-bit computers, Optical Illusions was written to show apparent motion of animated objects, color reversal and image persistence in images of controlled hue, saturation and brightness, influence of a background on the appearance of the colors, and ambiguous objects. The program will be made available in Internet libraries for the Atari eight-bit machines.
Stereoscopic vision was examined experimentally: students were asked to perform simple tasks, such as catching a rubber ball or touching together pencil tips, using either one or both eyes. Single image random dot stereograms (SIRD's, those pictures made of a bunch of dots or shapes, in which one is supposed to see a three dimensional image after relaxing the point of focus of one's eyes) were distributed (Ocean State Job Lot had file-folders with SIRD's on them at a reasonable price). SIRD's were also generated from graphic files and displayed on monitors.
We studieded the physiology of vision: the distinction between rods (most sensitive but unable to discriminate colors) and cones (for color vision), the Helmholtz three-color and Land two-color theories of vision. We used standard color-blindess test charts to check student vision.
Graphic images composed of discrete picture elements (or pixels) were examined, from mosaics in ancient Mediterranean cities to color dots in a cathode ray tube. The first objects my students examined through a microscope were halftone color illustrations from magazines and comic books, which show how discrete color dots blend to form apparently continuous shading. They then examined the phosphor triads of a color television tube with hand-held magnifiers (t.v. snow looked very interesting). We also studied paintings of the impressionists and post-impressionists and the use of pointilism preparatory to a trip to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Some of the physics involved, such as diffraction, interference, refraction, reflection, absorption, transmission and fluorescence, was also considered as part of a physical science course. Placing a magnet near a television or monitor demonstrated the deflection of the electron beam, which forms a raster image on the face of the cathode ray tube (picture tube). [Caution! Do not place a magnet close to the screen, lest it be magnetized, causing colored spots. To remove those spots, a degaussing coil or soldering gun may be used.] Colored shadows were formed with three separate colored light sources (flashlights with cellophane filters).
The technology of creating moving pictures was explored. Students drew a cage on one file card, a canary on another; the cards were stapled together and a pencil inserted between them. By rolling the pencil between the palms, students could see the bird inside the cage, demonstrating persistence of vision. Students looked at frames of a 16-mm motion picture film (grab some old films to use in class before they're all replaced by video tape or disks!) and made flip books of their own animations. The zoetrope, a vertical cylinder with vertical slits cut in its edge, may be used to display simple animations drawn on a strip of paper and placed inside the cylinder, which is viewed through the slits as it is rotated. A similar device may be made by cutting radial slits in a disk about 40 centimeters diameter and drawing frames between the slits. Spin the disk and view the drawings by looking through the slits into a mirror.
Fractals are self-similar shapes of fractional dimension... or, to put it simply, their parts are like their whole. For example, a plant may have the overall shape copied in the form of its branches, stems and leaflets. These shapes are fairly easy to simulate mathematically, and, indeed, a reasonable approximation to a fern or pine may be drawn from a simple algorithm. Fractals are interesting to many students (and teachers!) and may be explored on any computer, or even with pencil, compass and straight-edge.
For example, to construct a Sierpinski gasket (here, a triangle with center removed, creating thre smaller triangle with their centers removed...), follow this simple algorithm:
After a few dozen iterations, a recognizable shape starts to form.
The students also viewed fractals such as the Sierpinski gasket, with three or more vertices, the Mandelbrot set, dragon curve and others. These are related to physical forms or phenomena, when possible. For example, a program called Chaos, written for the eight-bit Atari, models diffusion-limited aggregation, forming graphic lintballs.
In addition to working with students on using the Internet, I ran an after-school workshop for teachers on telecommunications. For more information, please see the handout given there, Beginning Telecommunications.
There are a number of shareware or freeware MPEG video animation players available in versions for both DOS and Windows. From the Internet, we downloaded both the players and various MPEG's, such as the incredible morphing demonstration from Michael Jackson's video, produced by a graduate of Brown University, Black or White. Other MPEG's demonstrated ray tracing, cel animation, perspective and other concepts addressed in the workshop.
The student's favorite program was The Incredible Machine. This simulation of Rube Goldberg's cartoon inventions demonstrated both physical as well as two-dimensional modeling. There is both a playable free demonstration version as well as the full commercial version available. Students solved puzzles or created their own inventions. For example, a bowling ball dropped on a trampoline bounces onto a see-saw, which flips a basketball through a hoop. Actually, most inventions called for placement of many more parts.
The final project required students to draw plans for their ideal house, They started by studying the utilities needed and space constraints and the bases of architectural drawing, concentrating on a single room at first. After planning the house on graph paper, they attempted to carry their drawings through on CAD Key. This proved difficult for a first project, and many students were only able to follow the software's instructions for modeling a three-dimensional bracket.
Other software used included WinQVT, communications freeware for Windows, STIS, which creates stereograms, and Draft Choice.
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Last Modified 2/21/96