Angry Birds Parabola Project

This week I decided to try something new in my PreCalculus class.  It occurred to me that the paths of the Angry Birds are parabolas and that is exactly what we were working on recently.  Maybe someone had written a project that I could use and I wouldn't have to make one up!  So, I googled Angry Birds math project - and several popped up.  I used this one Angry Birds Project.



I divided the class into groups of 2 or 3 and then they got to work.  I used all 5 different versions of the project so that everyone didn't have exactly the same parabolas.  I liked that the different paths of the birds were described in different ways (graph, table of values, words, equation).

I found large graph paper that the students could use on amazon (see it here: Large 17 x 22 inch graph paper) - I wanted them to make their graphs large so that we could hang them up and people could see them.  They graphed each of the paths followed by the angry birds in the specific color of the bird.

Next, my students put stickers of the birds that I printed out each path.

But, here is my favorite part.  We learned about an app called koma koma at the beginning of the school year in our PD.  This is an app that you can use to make a short stop motion video.

Each group chose one bird that would move in their "movie."  We stuck this bird to a post it so they could move it easily.

Here is a group using the app to make their movie.

Here is my favorite movie that was turned in:

This project took about 3 class days to complete, but I introduced some new material at the beginning of class each day, so we still kept moving along.  My juniors and seniors enjoyed this project, but I also think younger students could be successful with this project with some modifications.