Every year, Desmos, an online graphing calculator, puts on a global art contest where kids and young adults submit art made entirely within the confines of the editor. I decided to compete in the 2022 competition, but I would need to learn a lot about how the Desmos calculator works to make something both aesthetic and fun. My submission is an interactive scene set in space. There are twinkling stars, a spinning galaxy, rotating planets, and a spaceship you can fly around. The project was first inspired by my newly acquired knowledge of probability theory. I discovered that Desmos allows you to sample from common probabilistic distributions, and I thought about using this to make a cloud of stars. The theme of space continued from there! Each time I wanted to add a feature, such as interactive buttons, animation, or controls, I had to cleverly recreate the functionality of programming using the limited tools available in Desmos.

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I spent much of my Winter Break working on this project. By the end, I had built a fun, clean, interactive project that showed off both my existing knowledge and things I learned along the way. When I was building the project, there were features I wanted to add that I didn’t think I was capable of. One such idea was a suggestion from my brother to have a little rocket ship launch from one planet and land on another. Seeing this feature work for the first time was such a joy and achievement for me. This project has inspired me to seek out other ways to learn through technology and play, and I’m proud to show off what I did.