Troy War with Sketchup in Junior High School [Final Version]
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Gaieus, ecofeco, chris, ... thank you.
About Plato. Some explanations.
The project was born as a math project and I am a math teacher.
I let the students use sketchup one hour a week and they gradually reach a level where they can draw all platonic solids and even more complex solids such as the truncated icosahedrons, etc.
As a math tool Sketchup is really great. I could talk a lot about its use for modelling, visualizing, teaching, familiarize with 3d geometry. These are some notes I wrote last year.When the project was reaching its end the director of the school, after seeing some of our videos, had the idea to ask us to produce a video about the Iliad to use in a concert at the end of this school year.
We didnt had much time so the students produced: temples, warriors, ships, shields, etc, but we also reused many of the models that they had already done. This explains all platonic solids and the castle inside the castle.
They could've done much better if they could've worked for the Iliad video the whole year.Anyway: Plato lived in 400b.c, while Homer (as a person or group) lived around 800-1000 b.c. That's a lot of years in between, you are right, but, one could say, ... greek society didnt change much. And, I would say,
"a society of reason, geometry, light" is a perfect society for war: it is precisely rationality that leads to war. (But that's just my opinion).Anyway: they really worked a lot with math and that's my goal and my work.
We could've worked better with history, we'll do that the next time. In the meantime they had a lot to think about.About the animation.
Chris you're right. The delays were done on purpose. It's my fault.
I'm not that good at making videos and I didnt have much time.
Thanks. I'll remember it is not a good effect.Finally.
What I can say is that they really learnt a lot about math and about modelling and that they love their video.guzman
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And ... no need to say that they perfectly know that there are at least 500 years between Homer and Plato and that a castle inside a castle doesnt make sense but they also wanted to have fun and show what they've done.
Even the man that lifts the other warrior doesnt make sense in physics but ... it's fun. And you have to let them have fun if you want them to work and learn.
guzman.
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guzman, I wish you were my teacher when I was 13!
Good job -
@unknownuser said:
"Plato lived in 400b.c, while Homer (as a person or group) lived around 800-1000 b.c. That's a lot of years in between, you are right, but, one could say, ... greek society didnt change much. And, I would say,
"a society of reason, geometry, light" is a perfect society for war: it is precisely rationality that leads to war. (But that's just my opinion).no need to say that they perfectly know that there are at least 500 years between Homer and Plato and that a castle inside a castle doesnt make sense but they also wanted to have fun and show what they've done.
Greeks changed a lot. In a way that made all us here individuals (democracy). And a castle inside a castle makes sense to me.
its sauron, voldemort, soviet union, nazis, Irak, Iran, east, far east, could be anything, (could be even Greece today, Italy tomorrow), against this light and reason, and these boring platonic solids (Kepler spent a life to understand it). Are you happy now? because I'm not.
A more artistic approach of history makes young people more happy, do you know this? There are some 13 years old people in zbrushcentral with some skills... never mind, should not quote all these... -
@michaliszissiou said:
Greeks changed a lot. In a way that made all us here individuals (democracy).
You dont need rationality to be an individual.
Otherwise kids, which are very irrational, would not be individuals.But I dont want to discuss this aspect, even though it is a very important aspect.
@michaliszissiou said:
and these boring platonic solids.
They are indeed, but not with sketchup and if you use them to draw perfect soccer balls. Kids love to understand the regularities of life ...
@michaliszissiou said:
A more artistic approach of history makes young people more happy, do you know this?
More artistic than that ... What are you looking for ?
Anyway:
- I think I've answer your questions,
- I think there's no need to puke on a nice project,
- I think, above all, that this project works for math and geometry.
The kids get to love the subject, they learn a lot and they accept to study issues that normally are considered very difficult.
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@d12dozr said:
guzman, I wish you were my teacher when I was 13!
Good jobThank you,
I started teaching three years ago.
I try my best to let the curiosity and the joy of exploring that kids have, emerge in what we do in the classroom.
It is interesting that many adults tell me that that is what they would've wanted.
I hope this helps the young individuals to grow up with passion
and, even if I make mistake, I cannot help but try again
'cause I'm convinced that getting the kids involved is the only way to teach them something.guzman.
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Epic!
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guzman I really like the project!
I still use highschool math every day when modelling in SketchUp. We had this 2d program when I was a kid, that was used for drawing mathematically, proving that certain corners were the same or 180-alpha... stuff like that. It would have been so much more fun with SketchUp!!
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From one teacher to another, great use of Sketch-Up. It is through these techniques of reapplying the learned knowledge across multiple platforms that helps retention. I am a high school teacher and have seen the 3D world draw every kind of student into its uses.
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4:37.......wow thats a brutal death! good job haha
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You should be proud Guzman, that is quite a compilation you have there tying so many aspects into a single video.
And take michalis's criticism with a grain of salt. Greeks are not in the best of moods lately. The credit card has been taken away.
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@cyberdactyl said:
You should be proud Guzman, that is quite a compilation you have there tying so many aspects into a single video.
And take michalis's criticism with a grain of salt. Greeks are not in the best of moods lately. The credit card has been taken away.
You may be right, these are my nightmares, but don't misunderstand me, what's coming is huge and not just a greek problem. IMO we have to be more careful, especially teachers.
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@Pilou:
thanks
@Pyroluna:
I think you talk about Cabri or GeoGebra.
I make the students use them too. But for 3D geometry Sketchup is great.@mrmar975:
Thank you,
I agree with you, applying what we study in various fields facilitates understanding the meaning of what we study.
And Sketchup is great: you mix technology, information technology, math, history, and whatever you want to. -
@olishea said:
4:37.......wow thats a brutal death! good job haha
the kids wanted it like that,
they also would've wanted even worse scenes ...
they just have fun with that stuff.
I think that having fun plays a great role in learning.
When you have fun you are likely to study and remember even complex stuff.
Some of the kids studied installed and studied sketchyphysics 'cause they wanted to produce more scenes and wanted to move some carts and stuff like that.
If you instead ask to study sketchyphysics explaining that it is an interesting physics simulator that may be used to study some physics, you dont get the same results ... -
@cyberdactyl said:
You should be proud Guzman, that is quite a compilation you have there tying so many aspects into a single video.|
Thank you.
Here are some more details about this project.
The students got to work with SketchUp for one hour per week, over 18 weeks. Each week had its own theme:
Week 1: parallelpipeds and chairs (Rectangle and Push/Pull tools)
Week 2: simple houses to build a simple greek city (Line tool)
Week 3: tetrahedrons, octahedrons and variations
Week 4: tables with books, lamps, etc (groups)
Week 5: cube of cubes, pyramid of pyramids, etc. (moving and copying groups)
Week 6: wooden 3d puzzle (Divide tool)
Week 7-8: cars and roofs (multiple selection)
Week 9: icosahedron, dodecahedron, truncated icosahedron (rotating groups)
Week 10: pipes and vases (Follow Me tool)
Week 11: more round objects
Week 12: Temples
Week 13: DNA (Rotate tool)
Week 14: men, shields, swords
Week 15: rooms
Week 16: men, shields, swords - completed
Week 17: helmets (hidden geometry)
Week 18: Random stuff for the video: troy, war carts, etc.For each week, students were given a worksheet explaining what they were about to model and how to go about it. For an example, check out the worksheet for the helmet (in Italian).
In all the students produced over 500 models during class, and completed another 100 on their own, at home. Here is their collection of models in the 3D Warehouse. Speaking of the 3D Warehouse, I didn't let his students download any warehouse models for this project; everything is from scratch!
You can see many more student videos of SketchUp projects (with 13-year old students) in my YouTube channel.
thanks,
guzman. -
I can sympathize with Michalis on the whole Plato-Homer thing, and feel there's no real need to bring Greece's current financial position into the discussion.
That aside, I love your project man! It's great how you mix 'boring old' math with computers and 3d animation. I bet there's not a single student who didn't love doing this, and I'm sure by doing this you've taught your students a much better feeling for triple-axis systems. I was always pretty good at math, but some of my classmates weren't. They would've had great benefit from a project like this.
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@flipya said:
... I love your project man! It's great how you mix 'boring old' math with computers and 3d animation. I bet there's not a single student who didn't love doing this, and I'm sure by doing this you've taught your students a much better feeling for triple-axis systems. I was always pretty good at math, but some of my classmates weren't. They would've had great benefit from a project like this.
Thanks Philip,
you found better words than I was able to find to describe the meaning of this project.I plan to describe better the whole project and to make the worksheets freely available but it's gonna take me some time and I need to translate them.
guzman.
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