Valerie Russell
A Fisherman’s Dream
By Rad Brosius, Austin DeFoor, and Denarious Barnes
Our group chose to have all of our math oriented origami pieces about functions. We wanted to do something that was very visual and easy to depict a mathematical message. This is why we chose to use our skills in the art of folding fabric, or lack thereof, to show we understood the mathematical curriculum, and lessons previously taught in Math 1.
The object of the visual aspect was to depict each function with a different piece of origami. We quickly came up with the plan to make each plant or animal and their path of motion represent something different. We have many pieces of origami, most are animals such as the frog, the lizard, the butterfly, and the two fish present in the water. There is also a tulip and a tree with six leaves.
The tulip is simply for scenery, a 5 by 5 piece of fabric. The Frog was made from a 6 by 6 piece of fabric and its path is meant to be a parabola. It jumps from one lily pad to another creating an arc or parabolic path. The Lizard was made from a much smaller 4 by 4 inch piece of fabric. Its tongue is meant to represent an absolute value function. It sticks out into the air and reflects in the water. A sharp turn at the vertex represents the absolute value equation. For the linear function, the fabric that was used is simply a bank to the right of the tree. The bank slides into the water at a constant rate making it linear. The water is also alive with life, 2 fish swim at each other, one a 5 by 5 and the other a 7 by 7. The fish’s path as it swims in the water is a cubed root function, swimming straight then curving and back to straight. Then the cubic function is the tree. Although it has many branches, the most prominent one curves up and away, and each branch has a leaf on it which are all made by a 5 by 5 piece of fabric. Lastly is our butterfly, a 5 by 5 inch piece of fabric flying through the air in a square root function. It starts at a point and curves up and eventually flattens to a point. These are the origami pieces used and what each represents.