Lesson
8:
Creating
Conics
By
Carly Coffman
Now that we
have studied conic sections, you will come up with an equation of a conic given
some information about the conic. In
applications, many times you are given a situation and must determine what type
of conic section your data fits. So, I
hope you’re ready to show off your knowledge of conics!
Given
a picture of a conic, come up with the equation of the conic.
1) 
2) 
3)
4)
Now,
you will be given a set of data in Excel.
We will go through one example and then I’ll set you free on your
own.
Click
on this link to see data for a dolphin’s jump.
(this
is not true data)
From the graph,
we can determine that the pattern is a parabola. So, we know the equation must be
When clicking
on the vertex, we can see that the coordinates are (2.5, 10) so we can
substitute these values for h and k respectively. Then, we can select another point on the
graph, (5,0) and substitute these values for x and y respectively. So we get the following equation:
Simplifying
we get:
So,
the equation for the graph above is:
Now
it’s your turn. Find the equation that
best fits the following sets of data.
(Copy
and paste each set of data and graph into your Word document)
Print your Word
document. You are now finished with the
Conics Unit!