Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Equations, Lines, Slopes, and Graphs but Were Afraid to Ask

The next lesson in chapter 3 of your math book is on graphs, lines, slopes, and equations. Why would you ever want to learn this you might ask? One very good reason is that in the very near future you will be participating in the Great Green Globs Contest and you will need to know all about coordinate geometry. You will learn by playing the Globs game either on the computer* (which is the best way) or with a printout of the score sheet along with a pencil and ruler.

Green Globs: The Game (a description)
Thirteen randomly scattered “green globs” are displayed on a coordinate grid. The goal is to "explode" all the globs by hitting them with the graphs of equations entered on the keyboard (or paper). The scoring algorithm encourages you to hit as many globs as possible with each equation in order to get the best possible score.

The following lesson will help you to learn all you need to know about graphing equations to succeed in Green Globs. Have a good time, but don’t forget to look for the big picture.

To get started you will need to print out:

(1) the lesson and
(2) the score sheet.

If you have the software you should download the saved game (as described in the lesson) and open it with the Green Globs program.
The Globs array for the contest will be posted on October 31.

If you questions or problems let me know. Also let me know if are getting the software. The lesson is written to be used with the software but you can also follow along by using a couple of printouts of the score sheet.

Good luck! - Ihor

You can also watch a short video intro to using Globs which I made and is on Youtube.
* The software program Green Globs and Graphing Equation is now available from http://www.greenglobs.net for only $20.00.

Comments

Maria Miller said…
I remember seeing an online version of this game somewhere, but can't remember where (I check all kinds of online math games regularly as a part of my job).

I was able to locate a similar one here:

demonstrations.wolfram.com/EquationOfALineGame/
October 29, 2008 at 12:41 PM
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