Making Art with Turtle Recursion (Class held in Clapp 150)

Note

In the original schedule for today, there was an AI activity and discussion. We have decided to replace this AI activity with the turtle embroidery makerspace activity described below. If you are interested, the AI activity is still available as an optional project.

Overview

Today's class (held in Clapp 150) will be led by Dr Johanna Okerlund '14, Wellesley's Makerspace and Interactive Media Coordinator. She will teach you how you can use TurtleStitch, a block-based turtle language, to design your own pattern that can be turned into a physical artifact using a digital embroidery machine. Here's an example:

Here is some background on the activity:

1. You will learn about digital embroidery and the TurtleStich programming environent in class. But if you're not able to attend class, you can learn about these by watching these two short videos:

   • Learn to code with textiles
   • Getting started with TurtleStich

   You can also experiment with TurtleStitch by going to turtlestitch.org and practice running some simple code (for example, what was shown on the video that you watched).

2. Go over the slides (see below) to learn about recursion with turtles. Recursive functions can create very interesting turtle patterns.

3. Download the notebook lec21_turtle_recursion.zip link and walk through it to see the kind of patterns that the turtle can create. (Solutions are provided at the end of this page.)

4. Try to do write the code for one of the simple patterns in the lecture slides / notebooks using TurtleStitch, so that you can ask questions in class.

Slides

• Full version of slides with all steps and extra reference

This version is too long, don't print it.

Code

Click on the lec21_turtle_recursion.zip link to download the .zip file to your computer. The unzipped folder contains the notebook for lecture activities.

Solutions