Because we both love to crochet, we decided that our project should incorporate crocheting in some way. For our project, we decided to crochet four different shapes – a sphere (ball), an elliptical paraboloid (bowl), a cylinder, and a torus – and model them on Mathematica. In addition, we chose to calculate the volumes and surface area of our crocheted creations.
In order to complete our project, we utilized a variety of techniques and concepts which were taught this semester in Multivariable Calculus. In order to create a virtual model of our shapes, we were able to take advantage of several of the Mathematica functions which we learned about this semester. Additional multivariable calculus concepts which we utilized in our project were iterated integrals and integration using polar coordinates. These integration techniques were especially useful when deriving the surface areas and volumes of our crocheted creations because of their circular nature.
