I have been experimenting with actionscripting a bit and though it may be a bit of an exageration to call these "tutorials", the following versions of the animations, still incomplete, are accompanied by some of the information used in their construction. It is probably necessary to show the math used in order to establish their validity as models. Knowing how to program the math seems to be almost as important as the math itself these days.
November 14,2006 - The Source files for these are now included in the Download.
The following links will bring up the animations with "click to activate" in Explorer. None of the Animations in the Download have been updated for this so they should open in all versions of Flash from MX to current.
Coded Circular Functions
Coded Circular Functions 2
Coded Circular Functions 3
Coded Circular Functions 4
Coded Circular Functions 5
Coded Elastic String 1
More source files here and a new animation, "Calculus 2". which is as yet only in the planning stage. You can download the source file here
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Here, I am interested in the Musemath animations carrying with them the explanation of their creation. Their re - creation in the mind of the viewer would be the learning process. These are varying ideas for doing that.
My thinking here is twofold:
a. A programmer might put this all together in an hour whereas I might take a year or more and be hopelessly out of date.
b. Many drawing parts of the animations could be acomplished at a very young age on various inexpensive programs. The details and practicality of all this is beyond me but, if interested, this is how I did it.
I would consider Flash to have some advantage in presentation (if not overdone), and some disadvantage (built in) with regard to correct mathematical modeling.
In addition; More can be accomplished with a better knowledge of programming, physics and math than I have.
If interested, here are some other sources that may prove helpful. Previews, tutorials and downloadable FLA files are available from many. Not all of them were done with physics in mind but they contain interesting ideas. Manyt were created in older versions of Flash and may need some actionscript updating,
As always, there are no guarantees or warranties.
http://www.senocular.com/flash/source.php?id=0.114
Trigonometry Unit Circle
Senocular.com - great info, downlods and links.
Trevor
McCauley works for Adobe in San Francisco supporting Flash and Fireworks and
doing some Fireworks development on the side. In his free time, he develops
Flash and Fireworks content for senocular.com and moderates forums on popular
Flash-related sites such as Kirupa.com, ActionScript.org, and
UltraShock.com.
http://flash-creations.com/notes/asclass_math.php
sine_circle_zip - This downloadable file may be just what is needed for the Coded Circular Functions Animations.
About flash-creations.com
This site was designed by me, Helen
Triolo, to be used as an online accompaniment to DM2260: Flash Animation on the
Web and DM3260: Flash II: ActionScript, courses that I teach at the Corcoran
College of Art and Design in Washington DC
http://moock.org/asdg/codedepot/
Animations by Colin Moock from his book ActionScript for Flash MX: "Motion-circular_6" The code here may be getting a bit dated, there have been two updated versions of Flash since this book came out. My idea here is to add variable inputs to the "Circular Functions" animations such as "Coded Circular Functions 5". Nothing very much yet.
http://www.keveney.com/Engines.html
This is not a flash tutorial but the animations are fascinating. There is some detailed explanation of their creation much of which can be used to explain some the mathematics of motion - this is the way all the early Musemath animations were created.
I found the site through
http://oscar.iitb.ac.in/oscarHome.do
But I am having considerable difficulty getting many of the Java Applets to work. - The main goal of Project OSCAR (Open Source Courseware Animations Repository) is to create a repository of web-based, interactive animations for teaching various concepts and technologies.
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http://www.phong.com/tutorials/
These are some really good swf and fla files with wild
waves.
Created by Anson Vogt in: Flash 6/MX
The most relevant files to Musemath seem to be:
!random >
sine.swf
and
graph > 2 menu.swf
Some very interesting ideas for flash tutorials and some
particularly good wave animations - (may prove to be good for demonstrating the
physical string, the basil membrane and/or the changes in complex harmonic
waveforms that make up music - I'm speculating here).
http://home.phong.com/
http://www.phong.com/astro/c&s/index.php
http://www.phong.com/astro/source/
http://www.phong.com/astro/source/prowse.php?cmd=prowse&path=content%2Fgraph
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WARNING - The following has lots of rapidly
flashing lights and strobe effects for the first 5 or 10 seconds of the
introduction.
http://www.actionscript.cl/
lifaros_flashExperiments_box number 1 has a nice flash fourier analysis
animation
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3D Tutorial
http://imm.sheridanc.on.ca/imm2004/patniral/tutorial/tutorial01.php
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http://www.actionscripts.org/tutorials/intermediate/Flash_Physics_Study/index.shtmlThis
tutorial is about gravity, for me, its importance is in its description of what
should and should not be considered in a Flash physics
animation.
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http://www.math.tamu.edu/~dallen/physics/
ALLEN Flash and Physics - Getting Physics Right
In this
tutorial, Dr Allen, a professor of mathematics discusses the do's and dont's,
the advantages and disadvantages of Flash animation for demonstrating physics.
Since I have already demonstrated a few of his don'ts, I consider this an
excellent starting place for improvement. Search his home page as well - he
sometimes puts other interesting things up.
Note: Some of the Musemath animations were created using a hybrid method where the math was done on paper and objects positioned accordingly, "easing" was applied as necessary. While the method of programming the math directly into actionscript is much preferred, there may be times when such hybrid technique should be kept in mind, such as: preliminary sketching, artistic design, practical simplification, , and possibly as a means of having the viewer duplicate the animation by doing the math and then positioning the objects on a virtual timeline and stage by "drag and drop". It is a possible "game like environment" for learning.
http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/Flash
All Flash - take a look at (among others): -Classical
Mechanics/Simple Harmonic Motion - Soundwaves/Pressure and Displacement Waves -.
Soundwaves/Temperament - Waves/Standing Waves With a Node at Both Ends Also,
http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca> Virtual Bookshelf >Classical >Standing
Waves
ProfessorHarrison is looking for people with the skills to improve his
animations and will provide his FLA files. ( April 2005) - He has recently put
up an interesting tutorial.
http://www.tsof.edu.au/resources/animation/2d/Advanced/flash_physics/flash_physics.02.swf
Another
official education site with some ideas about Flash and physics
http://www.krazydad.com/bestiary/bestiary_springBuilder.html
http://krazydad.com/bestiary/askjim.html
>math and
physics tutorials
Jim Bumgardner. A programmer/hobbyist
with a passion for making cool graphics software, and software toys.
He is also a musician and has set some music to Flash animation that I find interesting: http://www.coverpop.com/whitney/
http://www.the-stickman.com/tutorials/miscellaneous.shtml
f5bendyline.swf
– 2kb
and
f5elasticballs.swf – 1 kb
If you click and drag directly on one of the beads you can see why I am appreciative of and interested in his work.He states it is not a correct physics representation, it certainly holds promise.
http://www.kirupa.com/developer/actionscript/spring.htm
elastic.swf
– 1kb
http://bit-101.com/tutorials/elasticity.html
An actionscript tutorial on elascticity at an easy to read level.
There are several other tutorials on the site as well, Thanks to Keith
Peters.