Showing posts with label vectors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vectors. Show all posts

Friday, March 22, 2013

Mathmo

Mathmo is a review tool for A-level maths developed by the NRICH project at the University of Cambridge. It is advertised to work in Chrome, Safari, and on mobile devices. There are questions on wide range of topics in a typical American high school curriculum, though the range of question types within a topic is very limited. In some topics (logarithms, for example) there are a few different types of questions, but in most there is a single question type where just the specifics (numbers, functions, etc.) vary. You can ask for random questions from the wide range of syllabus topics or can choose your own specific topics to build up a set of questions. You work the problems on paper (or in your head) and then push the check answer button to compare your answer with the given one. If you want several questions on the same topic, you can add the topic multiple times to your question list or can click the new button from within a particular question.

I did experience a couple of minor bugs. Sometimes, the first time you look at a question you see the code rather than the mathematical notation. Clicking (or tapping) the question changes the code to notation. The description says that the color of the question changes once you indicate whether you got the question right or wrong. I didn't experience that either on the iPad or in Chrome.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Vectors in the Ocean

This applet provides an introduction to the vector equation of a line in the context of a boat traveling in the ocean. You specify the position vector and the velocity vector and then watch how the boat moves and the equation changes as the time changes. (Making the ocean visible sets the mood, but turning it off makes it easier to see what's happening!)

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Visualizing the dot product

Mystery Vector Function is a GeoGebra applet I created to introduce students to the dot product. In this applet, students observe a rectangle in which the length of one side is equal to the magnitude of vector b and the length of other side is equal to the projection of vector a onto b. They discover that the signed area of this rectangle is equal to the product of the magnitude of a, the magnitude of b, and the cosine of the angle between them. They can then use the angle difference identity for cosine to show that this is equal to the sum of the product of the x-components and the product of the y-components.