Exploring some fun 3d transformations

Today’s project with the boys was exploring some simple (to code!) transformations. The question was how would the shapes change under those transformations.

I started with introducing the idea in 2d. It isn’t necessarily the simplest idea, and I had no intention to go into any details. The basic question I wanted them to think about was this – would a straight line stay straight under this transformation?

Next we looked at a tetrahedron (actually two tetrahedrons) under some similar 3d transformations:

Now for the punch line – what do the same transformations do to an octahedron?

Finally, I wasn’t planning on doing this part, but to clarify some of the ideas from the first part of the project we went up to the computer to show them what the transformations did to a line in 2 dimensions:

So, I think this is a fun way for kids to explore some 3d shapes and also begin to understand a little bit about how algebra and geometry are related