Mathematical Art: Curves of Pursuit

https://www.artfulmaths.com/mathematical-art-lessons.html

We are continuing our look into how mathematics and art actually go hand in hand.  Once again, I visited the site "Artful Maths" to find inspiration.  The activity I chose is called "Curves of Pursuit".

This was a very cool activity.  We did not use a compass, we only needed a ruler to make the curves of pursuit come out correctly.  I gave each student a sheet of paper that had a square and triangle on the front, and a pentagon and hexagon on the back.  I wanted my students to have to opportunity to see how each of these worked.  They were amazed when the  curves made their appearance!

I did take a moment to show the math behind the magic of the pursuit curve.  I took them to the site http://www.mathcurve.com/courbes2d.gb/poursuite/poursuite.shtml.  This site showed them the curve studied by Leonardo da Vinci in 1732.