Fractals—Math, Science, Art, and Sketchpad

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Josephine mentions in her recent post how exciting it was to see what someone was doing in mathematics and that it involved Sketchpad. I also was inspired by someone who stopped by our booth at NCTM Albuquerque after having seen a presentation on fractals from the Fractal Foundation.  He was so pumped up because he made an immediate connection to Sketchpad, and how Sketchpad could be used to create fractals (which he told the presenter) and which is why he’d run right over to our booth to share.  That to me was pretty powerful and his enthusiasm was contagious.  He saw beautiful math and art and immediately makes a connection to how students and others could utilize Sketchpad to do the same things in order to learn about fractals.

So…I have been thinking on this for a while.  I know it’s possible to create myriad of math art using Sketchpad, of which fractals are one possibility.  My friend Kendra Lockman does AMAZING photographic fractal images using her photographs and Sketchpad. The question for me though is HOW do you do this?

I will admit—I am a fractal novice. I know fractals have to do with iteration, but exactly how and what the process is, I am unsure. Therefore, I thought I would go right to the source, Sketchpad, and teach myself.  I have attached a quick video of a very simple Pythagorean fractal, which I thought would be a nice, easy start since it is a tutorial that lives right in the Learning Center of Sketchpad. If you are so inspired, you can go try it yourself.

Enjoy—and as the Fractal Foundation mission states “use the beauty of fractals to inspire interest in science, math and art”. Go “fractal” with Sketchpad!