Friday Five for August 5

Back to school is still only an idea for the Friday Five, but it understands that back to school is very real and happening (or even has happened) for subsets of its constituency. We just can’t all seem to agree on when the school year starts and ends. But we can all agree that five new or revamped activities are a great thing, can we not?

Here they are. Be sure to read to the end this week, and get ready to demo some cool new features that we’re only beginning to play with!

Pixel Patterns

This activity has some of the prettiest Visual Patterns work you’re likely to encounter anywhere.

More Pixel Patterns

The Friday Five wants to share ALL of the pixel patterns! How many would that be? Maybe this goal isn’t practical. The Friday Five resolves to try anyway. This second activity doesn’t achieve the goal, but is a concrete next step.

Trigonometric Graphing

Bryn Humberstone offers up this clever and fun challenge to stuff trig functions into tiny boxes. It’s a really nice variation on a standard trig transformation theme,

Charge! and Building a Bigger Field

These two activities have each gotten an important upgrade. We’re developing tools that allow for authoring more intelligent and dynamic activities more quickly. At present, these tools are for in-house use only, but we plan to roll them out through Desmos Labs as they become ready for the public eye. In the meantime, try running through these two activities with groups of students, colleagues, or friends and see what’s new. And let us know what you think!