This probably is not how Walt drew him originally, but I think it is close enough to get the idea.
CONIC ART PROJECT WITH EQUATIONS SERIES
The rest of the face is a series of restricted domain circles, parabolas, and lines. Restricted domains, and piecewise functions generally, can be constructed with the piecewise function template, which is one of many templates if you choose the button just left of the book button.
Use some parabolas with restricted domains for the mouth. Ellipses can be added following the same series of steps as circles. You’ll find many conic section templates included there.Īdd some ellipses of the nose and eyes. The easiest way to plot circles from inside a graph is to choose Menu -> 3:Graph Entry/Edit -> 3: Equation Templates, and from there, choose the template you are looking for. Start with a series of circles for his face and ears. You could do the entire project right on the handheld if you wanted, and I’m demonstrating that in this post, with a series of plots creating Mickey Mouse. We did this on graphing paper, and told the students they could check a few things with their calculators if they wanted, but in recent years, the TI-Nspire CX (review) operating system has come a long way. It’s a fun way to reinforce how the various parameters for these equations influence the shape of their respective graphs. Back when I was a Pre-Calculus teacher, one of the projects I used to assign during our conic sections unit was creating an art project out of equations, using circles, ellipses, lines, etc, and restricting their domains.