Programming Valentines Day Cards


Instead of buying Valentines Day cards for my four year old's classmates, he and I decided to program the LogoTurtle to help make designs for cards that we would create. I checked with one of his teachers to make sure this did not come as being cheapskate: she said she loved the LogoTurtle and still had one of the pieces I created with it with some of my son's classmates.



I oftentimes use TurtleArt to plan my LogoTurtle procedures: it helps to be able to visualize the design before I type the procedure. I asked him what he wanted on the cards. He chose a heart. My son watched me snap the blocks together and made suggestions about how long the lines needed to be and how they needed to meet the arcs at the top.


Designs do not always transfer perfectly from TurtleArt to the LogoTurtle: the Metro Mini does not handle floating point math, so some tricky math was employed for the arcs, for example, and the friction of the pen, wheels, and ball bearing on the paper all affect the drawing. Regardless, it did not take too many changes to the TurtleArt procedure for it to run well on the LogoTurtle.



Using a 5 inch by 8 inch index card, the LogoTurtle drew two hearts per page. 

When my son returned from school he got coloring!







The variety is lovely!



This project is another example of going from bits to atoms with Logo programming. Additionally, it is another chance for me to instill in my son the belief that creating, not consuming, produces more memorable, personal, and beautiful work.

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