Reflection from the math art work

When I was introduced to this assignment by our Professor, I was looking forward to know about the insights that connect math and art together. I browsed the Art Math gallery 2019 and was very amazed to see the various math art forms done by the people. I was looking into each one of them and wondering which one would be best for me to work on. Eventually, we as a group came up with Clayton Shonkwiler artwork, which was about creating a map between the two block letters(polygons) which have the same number of vertices and then we replicated the art by using our initials as block letters.

Initially when I started working on this project, I was not able to relate to the math at high school level with the coding in Mathematica which the scientist used to make this math art. On discussing with my group mates and breaking the art into smaller conceptual segments, I found that this art can be used to introduce a coordinate system, reflecting on the vertices drawn on the graph paper, then extending them to the concepts of reflection and translations. I also found it interesting how beautifully bijective function fits this math art which gives me the opportunity to explain the one-one function and the onto function in depth. This concept of functions, can be explored to discuss the bijectivity of exponential, logarithm and trigonometric functions and gives chance to students to inquire about the possible domain and ranges for which the function is bijective. In addition to this, we can also make the students understand about the Euler’s Equation ((number of vertices)- (number of edges) + (number of faces)) is always equal to 2 using the block letter of their own name.

The overall experience was pretty good. The mapping of initials was a bit time consuming but once it was done, I was really happy to look at it.  My classmates were a very good audience, they actively participated by engaging in the class activity, answering the questions I asked. My teammates were awesome to work with, we helped and shared our ideas with each other. We had good timing and everyone had the chance to participate. But there is always an opportunity to improve and do better. I feel I could have explored the coding behind the art more so that I can make more connectivity and play around for myself. On the other hand, the conclusions of this math art are of great importance for high school students.