Students who work at The Factory build spatial perception as they explore angle measures, rotation, and transformations of geometric figures. Student can start with the finished product and figure out the assembly line, or they can be shown an assembly line and predict the product it will make. In Function Grapher, plot function, use zoom, build tables of values, and find roots. In Function Transformer, understand symbolically and graphically such terms as factor, expand, simplify, and collect terms. In Function Comparator, learn the nature of equations, inequalities, and identities.
Students combine gears of various sizes to build gear trains.
Then they solve gear puzzles and build a gear train that meets given specifications. Finally, students build a gear factory that fills predetermined orders. Students may perform constructions on several shapes, view them in a graph history window, and use the Geometer's Spreadsheet to analyze the data from the present and previous cases. Trace loci, copy angles, or use the full complement of transformations. Save the entire set of constructions as a function of a shape.