Desmaze

Claire Verti, one of my teachers, sent me this blog post today. David Sladkey is using Desmos to complete a maze with his students.

Sweet, right?

I immediately tackled it and now present to you my completed Desmos Maze. As you can see, I had some fun toward the end.

Then, because we’re testing this week and my entire role is to sit and wait for something to break, I made this. Using Google Draw, we can make any kind of maze we want. Make just three points if you want students to start practicing, like Michael Fenton did spectacularly.

Or make a complicated one if you have two-hour blocked periods for SBAC testing and some Pre-Calc students who need to be challenged.

This might be what I bring into Mr. Rynk’s class next month for a demo lesson; I’m curious to hear students talking about piecewise functions.

Then, I made this one, thinking that it might help students with coordinate plane, but I’m not sold on it yet.

Initially, I had students changing the ordered pair (x,y) to move the point, but then, as students delete the 5 and type the 6, the point blinks in and out of existence. We need continuity. But moving the sliders isn’t very challenging, and it’s no longer a math activity, it’s a game with very little math reasoning in it.

Improve this, will you?

~Matt “I Promise; This Is Technically Work” Vaudrey

UPDATE 23 APRIL 2015: A nice follow-up question to keep the class challenged: