1. Have your students draw their own dinosaurs using the paint tool in Squeak and make them move. They could get some ideas from the Internet of what different dinosaurs looked like and how they moved. They could go to www.squeakland.org and find out how other children their age have created animations and they could animate their dinosaurs.
2. The length units in the activity aren't scaled to any standard length units, like meters. Have your students look up information on dinosaurs and try to determine a good scale for the units in the animation in terms of meters. They should use 10 m/s/s for the acceleration of gravity when calculating the normalized speed. If they choose reasonable values to scale the activity (one grid unit approximately 1 centimeter), they will find that the data they take will no longer fall on the universal curve. As a challenge for very advanced students, have them change the script so the animation gives correct data that will fall on the universal curve using their scaled values in meters.
Before trying the last and hardest part of Challenge 4, your students and you should read this section. You can take the activity apart, which is the power of Squeak. Click on the Playing button at the left for a introduction to how Squeak works, if you haven't done this already. You must click Escape Browser and your resolution must be set at 1024x768 to view this properly. Go to Squeakland for tutorials and more information on using Squeak. Again, taking it apart and even breaking it is a good way to learn. No matter how bad a mess you make, you can always get back to the original activity by exiting Squeak and starting over, so don't worry. This activity is written using a computer language called Smalltalk, so understanding the simulation will be much more challenging. It should be for very advanced students.
3. Challenge 4 (last part): Have your very advanced students create a script that will move the SaberZot such that his data will fall on the universal curve. They can take apart the Squeak project to see how it works. They should start by looking at the script called walk for Norbesaur's leg by clicking the 1st flap at the top on the right. They can click once on the script tile and drag it out onto the work area to examine it. Once they figure out how the script works, they need to create a modified version to make SaberZot move correctly. Since SaberZot will have four legs, they need to add lines in the script for two more legs. It would also be very helpful to download and print the Etoy Quick Start Guide. Have your students submit their Squeak project for Challenge 4 to the NASA CONNECT web site. We will post all the good entries that we receive to acknowledge your good work and let others learn from your solution.
4. You may think mathematics and art aren't related, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The sense of beauty you see in art is equally important in mathematics. Symmetry is part of beauty and it runs throughout art and mathematics. Theorems have a sense of beauty because they represent truth. Beauty gives you a sense of balance and well-being in your life. The Squeak project was organized on the page to be functional and that often leads to a kind of beauty. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so we challenge you to recreate the Squeak Exercise Challenge project in a way that leaves you with a sense of balance and beauty. With the tools in Squeak, you can make your own drawings. Any of the objects can be moved and resized and their colors can often be changed. Click on any object while holding down the alt key on a PC or the command key on a Mac and you will see the halo of handles. Click on the red handle at the upper left to explore many options for changing the object. Go to Squeakland for tutorials and more information on using Squeak. When you are done go to the NASA CONNECT web site to submit your version of the Squeak project and we will post it to bring beauty and balance into the lives of all who choose to open your project.
