WTSM
100L: Patterns in Nature
Term
project, Fall 2007
The purpose
of the term project is for you to apply some of the things you’ve learned,
either by going more deeply into some topic related to the course that
interests you, or to investigate some related area that we haven’t had time to
talk about in class.
The project is not intended to be
simply a book or Web site report, but should include some original investigation on your part, such as gathering data,
carrying out some calculations, running computer simulations, creating art or
music, etc.
You may work alone or in two- or
three-person groups—a group project is expected to be more substantial than a
project done alone, however. For those in groups, all of you will be expected
to contribute to all aspects of the project, attend the progress report
meeting, and contribute to the final poster and presentation. Group project
grades will be based 70% on the group’s work and 30% on individual
contributions.
As a final product, you (or your group, if
you do a group project) will put together a poster that summarizes your project and your findings, and give a
brief (10 minutes) presentation to
the class during the scheduled final exam period. You will also meet with me
several times to discuss your progress. These meetings will count toward your
project grade (see below). More information about the poster will be provided
next week.
Required checkpoints:
·
By the start of class Thursday, November
15: Talk to me (or email me) about tentative ideas for
your project; I’ll help you evaluate them for feasibility and help you with
sources (5%)
·
By 5 p.m. Tuesday, November 20:
Select a final topic (5%). Inform me of your topic and list of group members.
·
During the week of December 3-7: Progress
report (meet with me to discuss progress; bring a tentative outline of the
poster to the meeting) (10%)
·
Thursday, December 13, 3:30 p.m.:
Final poster session and presentations (80%)
See
other side for sample project ideas!
Sample project ideas (with a few starting
references)
1. Size, scaling, and population: why are there
so few tigers and so many beetles? Why are the largest carnivores today smaller
than in the time of the dinosaurs? (Barrow Ch. 3)
2. Modular architecture (using polyhedral
units as efficient building blocks) (MAA article)
3. Tilings and
symmetry in art (Escher; Islamic mosaics)
(http://www.scienceu.com/geometry/articles/tiling/index.html)
4. Soap bubbles and minimal surfaces (structures
that minimize the amount of material used, can have applications to architecture)—experimental
and/or mathematical investigations (Peterson Ch. 3)
5. More on the math and/or biology of phyllotaxis: (http://maven.smith.edu/~phyllo/About/index.html)
6. Fractals in
7. Lungs and blood vessels: how do they
branch most efficiently? (Stevens
8. Grow your own snow crystals under
different conditions (http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/project/project.htm)
9. Jell-O as a percolation cluster: experiment
to find the critical concentration needed to turn it into a solid: (http://polymer.bu.edu/ogaf/html/chp71act3.htm;
Peterson Ch. 7)
10. Computer simulations of the formation
of natural patterns: honeycombs, flocks of birds, slime molds, etc. (http://education.mit.edu/starlogo/)
11. Julia sets and their connection to
Mandelbrot sets; Mandelbrot sets and chaos (more mathematical/computational)
(Peterson Ch. 6; http://users.erols.com/ziring/mandel.html)
12. The use of optical illusions in art (op
art)
13. Aural (hearing) illusions and
perception (CD of audio demonstrations)
14. Artificial (computer) “life” and
cellular automata (Peterson Ch 7;
http://www.rennard.org/alife/english/acintrogb01.html)