For the past few years, we have given the top set in UIV an introduction to ‘DESMOS’, a piece of graph plotting software freely available online. Whilst it has clear uses in teaching and is regularly utilised by the staff here, an unexpected opportunity is to use the software to create artwork. By defining curves, lines, polygons, and inequalities it is possible to create sophisticated images. Therefore, every year we task the UIV with creating different pieces of artwork.
The first task of the year is in the Autumn Term when the students learn to use DESMOS to create festive greetings cards. The mathematics behind these is extremely complicated, and we teach the students techniques they would not normally meet until later in their GCSE studies or even at A Level. Our top set engaged very well with this project, creating a number of beautiful cards which were shared in a news piece earlier this year.
Moving on to the Spring Term, we trialled a new project this year: to create posters based on films or book covers. This ambitious project took careful planning with the students working in pairs to complete these. I am pleased to report that the UIV once again rose to the challenge, producing five outstanding posters which are now on display in Maths 2. We had three film posters: Up, Despicable Me, and SpongeBob SquarePants. Additionally, we had a musical poster for Phantom of the Opera and a book cover for Once Upon a Prime.
We are proud of all the artwork produced by our UIV mathematicians but would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the extended work and dedication shown by individuals in completing this.
Aimee L’s poster for Once Upon a Prime is astonishing, with a choice of colour and detail that leads to something comparable to the real thing. She also carefully defined her lettering to recreate the original front cover text. She spent considerable time working on this outside of lessons and was awarded a Head’s Commendation for her efforts.
Elsa Y W also produced an outstanding image for her greetings card which looks like it has been hand drawn. She missed the original December submission deadline and instead elected to work on her card from October until June. She defined over 800 separate equations to do this and had to teach herself techniques not normally met until Further Maths A Level to finish the card. She was also awarded a Head’s Commendation for her efforts.
The calibre of the UIV work is truly exceptional, and they have set a high bar for the incoming cohort next year. We are continuing to look for opportunities to develop the students’ skills and are launching our first DESMOS Art competition this summer: watch this space!
Mr Stephen Douglas, Teacher of Mathematics
