Making Art with Math

Students in , Matt Notary's math class use their calculators to make art. “I called it the Graphing Design Project,” said Mr. Notary. “ Students created original compositions using the online graphing calculator at Desmos.com. They have been using this calculator in class all year in place of traditional hand-held graphing calculators, so they were already familiar with how to enter equations and view the graphs of the equations. The project was open-ended. I didn't tell them what to create. I just gave them some basic guidelines on the minimum requirements for the number and types of equations they needed to use. I wanted to make sure that in addition to creating a piece of artwork, they demonstrated knowledge of the mathematical concepts they have been learning this year.”

Creating a piece of art typically involves a pencil, a paintbrush or a blob of clay, but Middle School Math Teacher and GA Registrar Matt Notary’s Algebra B Honors Class created artwork, which are currently hanging in the Middle School Art Gallery, using good old fashioned math.

That’s right, math.

“I called it the Graphing Design Project,” said Mr. Notary. “​Students created original compositions using the online graphing calculator at Desmos.com. They have been using this calculator in class all year in place of traditional hand-held graphing calculators, so they were already familiar with how to enter equations and view the graphs of the equations. The project was open-ended. I didn't tell them what to create. I just gave them some basic guidelines on the minimum requirements for the number and types of equations they needed to use. I wanted to make sure that in addition to creating a piece of artwork, they demonstrated knowledge of the mathematical concepts they have been learning this year.”

In order to complete the project, students had to create a composition by entering equations into the online calculator that in turn graphed the equations and created the lines, curves, and shapes in the composition. They then saved their projects in their accounts on Desmos.com and emailed them to Mr. Notary.

The equations the students used came primarily from Algebra 1, which they have been studying all year. The requirements were to write at least 20 equations, including at least 10 equations with restricted domain and/or range, at least one linear equation, at least one quadratic equation, and at least one inequality.

“All of those topics are part of different units we have worked on during the year,” said Mr. Notary. “Most students went well over the minimum number of equations, and some used equations from Algebra 2 and Trigonometry, although we did not discuss those in class; they just explored them on their own because they wanted to create more complex shapes.”

The idea to create formula-based graphic design compositions stemmed from the Middle School faculty’s exploration of project based learning and it’s iPad pilot program.

“The Middle School Mathematics Department was discussing ways we might incorporate these things into our curriculum,” said Mr. Notary. “As a result of these discussions, the idea gradually started to take shape in my mind. We decided to try it with some eighth grade classes this year, with the hope that based on the results we could refine it and perhaps do it with more classes next year. Dion Lehman helped me with some of the planning, and I did the project with my two honors-level eighth grade classes in January.”

In the end, students created a wide variety of designs, including Rachael V.’s ’18 composition of Pac Man, which took a whopping 176 formulas to complete.

“I liked the challenge of it,” said Rachael. “It was hard trying to figure out the equations so each line matched up and each dot went in the right place, but overall it was a fun project.”

Classmate Quinton R. ’18 echoed Rachael’s sentiments.

“I enjoyed working on it at separate times,” said Quinton. “I would work on it once a day for about 20 minutes at a time just thinking about new ideas. I’m not too particular about what it is; I just like throwing designs on and see how it comes out. We had to use different forms of math to figure out how to make a certain circle and square. It was really interesting. I’ve never done it before.”