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Course: Math for fun and glory > Unit 1
Lesson 1: Spirals, Fibonacci and being a plant- Doodling in math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and being a plant [1 of 3]
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- Doodling in math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and being a plant [3 of 3]
- Open letter to Nickelodeon, re: SpongeBob's pineapple under the sea
- Angle-a-trons
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Angle-a-trons
This is a follow-up from Being a Plant part 2 ( http://youtu.be/lOIP_Z_-0Hs ). Created by Vi Hart.
Want to join the conversation?
- Does this work for all angles?(127 votes)
- You can probably get any fractional angle (i.e nπ/m). Finding an arbitrary angle (like an irrational scalar of π) would likely be impossible, though. But if you're clever enough, you can probably get close to whatever you want.(22 votes)
- what exactly means the word "Angle-a-tron" ? it's in no dictionary...(48 votes)
- Vi made the word up. It is a piece of paper folded into a certain angle to be used like a protractor(7 votes)
- what is that shape at0:50?(11 votes)
- The figure on the notebook at0:50is referred to as a necker cube. It is one of many optical illusions, figures that are physically impossible. Artist M.C. Escher used this figure often is his.(18 votes)
- It took me a while to figure you can make a 60 degree angle by taking a 90 degree angle and splitting it into 3.
Does any body know a better way?(2 votes)- Try taking a 180 degree angle-a-tron and splitting that into thirds.(7 votes)
- I noticed that the Angle-a-Tron is a piece of paper... Why not just use a protractor? There really isn't a reason on WHY you should, is there?(0 votes)
- If you are going to use the same angle over and over again, making an angle-a-tron is a lot less work. You would line up a protractor, mark a point, twist the protractor around, and draw the line. Vi just lays the angle-a-tron down and draws the line in one step.(17 votes)
- How is the impossible shape in0:47made?(2 votes)
- That shape is called a Necker cube. If you google it, you will probably find detailed instructions on making one as pretty as Vi did, or you can just pause the video and see what she went through. :)(5 votes)
- All her vids are GREAT
:3 :) :D(4 votes) - how do you make them?(3 votes)
- how do you make a flower?(2 votes)
- this awsome why did you stop making them(2 votes)
Video transcript
So if you're like
me, you probably don't carry around a
protractor everywhere you go. And even if you
do, sometimes you want to have only
the angle you want. Because you needed a whole bunch
without all those other degrees getting in the way. This is the need that the
angle-a-tron fulfills. A protractor is kind of like
a 180-degree angle-a-tron. It's great at 180 degrees. You can make your own 180-degree
angle-a-tron super easily from any piece of paper. Even if your paper doesn't have
an edge, you can just fold it. And tada, angle-a-tron. One extremely
useful angle-a-tron is the 90-degree angle-a-tron. Many pieces of paper come
pre-equipped with one of these. But if they don't,
you can get one by folding a 180-degree
angle-a-tron in half. Now you can draw all
sorts of rectangly things and perpendicularities. Following the
fold-stuff-in-half method, you can get a 45-degree
angle-a-tron pretty easily. Or a 22.5 degrees. Or 11.25, and so on. And you get these
weird looking numbers. But that's only because
we started with something arbitrary, like 360 degrees. When really the numbers
we're looking at are 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16,
you know 1/2 to the n. It's not hard to fold
paper into thirds either. Might take a little evening
out, then bam, 180 degrees tuns into 60 degrees. Good for making
equilateral triangles. Or put two together
to get 120 degrees. A very common and useful angle
for when, say, bubbles meet. If you're drawing bubbles
or honeycombs or something. Then you can start
adding them together. 135 degrees is easy. 90 degrees plus 45 degrees. Now, you can make
puzzles for yourself. Say you make a
60-degree angle-a-tron and a 135-degree angle-a-tron. How do you make an angle-a-tron
that completes the circle? Or if a friend gives
you an angle-a-tron, can you make the complementary
or supplementary-- I forget which is which-- angle-a-tron? And then, let me know if this
is going a little too far. Maybe you can put
an angle-a-tron on your angle-a-tron. And now I have a 60 degrees
and another 60 degrees, which comes over here to
make another 60 degrees. And I've got an equilateral
triangle polygon-a-tron. And just in case you thought
that wasn't going too far, why not make that into
a polyhedron-a-tron?