Scribe Post. Isabel. Ch. 4 and Ch. 5 Polygons. Unit 2

This is the scribe post for Friday (9/18/09).
Today we talked about the “BoB”, or “Blogging on Blogging”, comments on the blog. Jojo read aloud some of the comments which he thought were good feedback about the blog and we discussed how we could improve our class blog. Jojo is working on simplifying the blog and making it easier to use!
We began the next unit (This means that all blog point’s- comments, PoPs, ect. - grading will start over. So make sure you begin to get credit for blogging on this unit!). This new unit covers chapter 4 – polygons, and chapter 5- area.

Chapter 4- Polygons:
(Our text book's definition of a polygon) Polygon- is a geometric figure that consists of three or more line segments joined end-to-end so as to enclose a region of the plane that contains those segments. Each corner of a polygon is called a vertex (plural is “vertices”). The line segments which form the polygon are called sides.
A simpler definition of a polygon (from dictionary.com)- a closed figure having three or more sides and lying on one plane.
Jojo discussed polygons, “geometry is everywhere!”, and “polygons everywhere!” we looked at some very interesting videos about polygons. One of them was a video about polygon art; someone used a computer design program to use polygons to create an undersea scene. The link is below:
(View build- having fun- under the sea)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU4zgzNFk0k

We also visited a very interesting website which had some great videos of polygons. Here is the link to the website. I recommend exploring it!
http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/index.html
Some of the demonstrations we watched about polygons on this website were; six hexagons, whirling polygons, and polygon simplification.

Jojo talked about how polygons were everywhere; a prime example of this was GPS systems. With GPS systems, anyplace where you are can be represented by a polygon using a satellite. If a polygon contains a set of info, there’s a certain algorithm (algorithm- “a computerized series of events that happen at a certain time”) that represents your position and gives you the information for that position. As you move around, your longitude and latitude change, and you get new sets of information on your GPS.

This pretty much sums up Fridays math class. I tried to find a website about GPS systems and how they work but I couldn’t find a good one. If you find a good link about GPS systems and polygons, comment on this scribe post and let me know!
The next scribe is Brian.

-Isabel