Exploring triangles  (2009-Nov-28 17:45 EST)

by <>  (2010-Sep-03 7:42 EDT)

The project includes an mpeg player for playing a little video. I don't know how to bind the video into the project, or include it in the Showcase. If you would like to see / use the movie, it is available here:

http://www.ilearnsoicanlead.net/downloads/rhombus.mpeg

by <>  (2010-Sep-03 7:42 EDT)

Very well done. I like your "Book of Knowledge"
Also great job on displaying angles and lengths. I already copied your triangle into my supply box and am playing with it for another project.

I can see you already put a lot of time into this, so I hope you don't mind if I mention a few things I found. The Triangle in "Properties of Triangles" gives you an "Error: sqrt is invalid for x<0" when you have points A,B and C in a straight line. Also when I got into a cave the "Car Navigator" disappeared and I couldn't figure out how to get them back (so I just dragged the car into caves).

That said a very impressive project.

by <>  (2010-Sep-03 7:42 EDT)

I saw a presentation of a possible use of this type of project at Squeakfest 2009. It was for a calculation of an optimum warehouse site relative to several store locations. This project illustrates an expanded version of that and shows possibilities for other real world applications/modeling as well. Thank you for posting.

by <>  (2010-Sep-03 7:42 EDT)

My above comment was for another project. I got my windows mixed up and don't know how to delete the above comment. I apologize. However, I do want to say that this project is well done. I had the same problem as mrsteve. I didn't know how to get back to the original page so I dragged the car to another cave which worked ok but it did create another copy of the car. But overall, I like the way you structured the lesson on triangles. Great work!

by <>  (2010-Sep-03 7:42 EDT)

Thanks for taking a look at the Exploring Triangles project.

Re: the disappearing controls, each page has a set of controls which are made visible by clocking on the steering wheel that appears on each page/screen in the upper left corner. The controls are not displayed at the beginning, which looks like it might be confusing so I will look at that. (Each page also has its own car, which is why a copy seems to be created.) I will add these to my to-fix-up list.

by <>  (2010-Sep-03 7:42 EDT)

Wonderful. Your use of the book for exposition, particularly the teachers guide, is a model for future projects. I will be showing this project many times, I'm sure. The puzzles are fun and informative and show the best of what Etoys can do.

Some suggestions:

1. the text in the book is very small and hard to read. Perhaps this is a scaling thing, but most viewers will have trouble reading it on the website using Etoys 4 (particularly the resources).

2. The steering wheel confused me. I tried to rotate it like the "drive a car" example. This is clearly answered when you click on it (and I love the speed/heading bars), but if someone right clicks and rotates, they might think it's broken. The drive-a-car example is pretty well known in the Etoys community, though perhaps not by kids.

3. Change "are the same lengths as the triangle below" to "are the same lengths as the triangle to the right". I was confused, since there's stuff below too, in the box.

4. Had some trouble making the triangle with the connectors. Not sure why, but couldn't get the last one to click without using the halo.

by <>  (2010-Sep-03 7:42 EDT)

Another thought ... laughter might not be the best sound when they get it wrong.

by <>  (2010-Nov-01 17:37 EDT)

Sorry I was unable to read your instructions in your nice looking book. The font is to small.

Paul