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(This article was first published on <strong><a href="http://smarterpoland.pl/index.php/2018/03/how-fractals-helped-my-students-to-master-package-development-in-r/"> SmarterPoland.pl » English</a></strong>, and kindly contributed to <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.r-bloggers.com/">R-bloggers)</a> </div>
<p>Last semester I taught an R programming at MIMUW. My lectures are project oriented, the second project was related to package development. The idea was straightforward: each team of students shall create a package that produces <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iterated_function_system" target="_blank">IFS fractals (based on iterated function systems)</a>. Each package shall have two generic functions: <em>create()</em> and <em>plot()</em>, documentation and vignette. Fractals shall be implemented with the use of S3 or S4 classes.</p>
<p>I have students with different backgrounds. Mostly statistics, but some are from physics, psychology or biology. I was a bit unsure how they will deal with concepts like iterated contractions.<br>
After all results exceeded my expectations.</p>
<p>Guess what is happening with students engagement when their packages start producing nice plots. Their need/hunger for more leads to beautiful things.</p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="https://github.com/pbiecek/ProgramowanieWizualizacja2017/tree/master/Projekt_2/IFSpremium" target="_blank">This team</a> got interested in <strong>nonlinear transformations</strong>. They manage to create <a rel="nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonian_gasket" target="_blank">Apollonian Gasket</a> generator and much more. See <a rel="nofollow" href="https://rawgit.com/pbiecek/ProgramowanieWizualizacja2017/master/Projekt_2/IFSpremium/docs/articles/IFSvignette.html" target="_blank">their vignette and package here</a>.</p>
<p><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 7.31.24 PM" src="https://i0.wp.com/smarterpoland.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-09-at-7.31.24-PM-1024x600.png?w=450" class="wp-image-8624" data-recalc-dims="1"></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="https://github.com/pbiecek/ProgramowanieWizualizacja2017/tree/master/Projekt_2/IFSrainbow" target="_blank">This team</a> got interested in <strong>probabilistic mixtures of two fractals</strong>. They developed <a rel="nofollow" href="https://lrajkowski.shinyapps.io/fractalmixer/" target="_blank">a Shiny app</a> that mixes two sets of contractions with given mixture proportions. Here is a mixture of Sierpinski gasket and a tree. <a rel="nofollow" href="https://rawgit.com/pbiecek/ProgramowanieWizualizacja2017/master/Projekt_2/IFSrainbow/docs/articles/IFSrainbow-vignette.html" target="_blank">Find out their vignette here.</a></p>
<p><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 7.29.58 PM" src="https://i2.wp.com/smarterpoland.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-09-at-7.29.58-PM-1024x502.png?w=450" class="wp-image-8626" data-recalc-dims="1"></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="https://github.com/pbiecek/ProgramowanieWizualizacja2017/tree/master/Projekt_2/IFSflorek" target="_blank">This team</a> got interested <strong>in random fractals</strong>. They developed fractal generator that draws parameters of each contraction. In result they get beautiful random shapes like these. <a rel="nofollow" href="https://rawgithub.com/pbiecek/ProgramowanieWizualizacja2017/master/Projekt_2/IFSflorek/docs/articles/drawing_fractals_with_IFSflorek.html" target="_blank">Here is their vignette.</a></p>
<p><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 7.37.42 PM" src="https://i2.wp.com/smarterpoland.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-09-at-7.37.42-PM-1024x703.png?w=300" data-recalc-dims="1"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 7.37.31 PM" src="https://i0.wp.com/smarterpoland.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-09-at-7.37.31-PM-1024x713.png?w=300" data-recalc-dims="1"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 7.37.26 PM" src="https://i1.wp.com/smarterpoland.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-09-at-7.37.26-PM-1024x710.png?w=300" data-recalc-dims="1"></p>
<p>And these two teams got interested in different ways of <strong>fractal colouring</strong>. Vignettes of <a rel="nofollow" href="https://rawgithub.com/pbiecek/ProgramowanieWizualizacja2017/master/Projekt_2/IFSpakietJKM/docs/articles/vignette.html" target="_blank">Team 1</a> and <a rel="nofollow" href="https://rawgit.com/pbiecek/ProgramowanieWizualizacja2017/master/Projekt_2/IFS586/docs/articles/IFS_vignette.html" target="_blank">Team 2</a></p>
<p><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 7.40.15 PM" src="https://i2.wp.com/smarterpoland.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-09-at-7.40.15-PM-1024x723.png?w=300" data-recalc-dims="1"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 7.36.01 PM" src="https://i2.wp.com/smarterpoland.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-09-at-7.36.01-PM-1024x634.png?w=300" data-recalc-dims="1"><img alt="Screen Shot 2018-03-09 at 7.31.05 PM" src="https://i1.wp.com/smarterpoland.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-09-at-7.31.05-PM-1024x650.png?w=300" data-recalc-dims="1"></p>
<p>After all it turns out that fractals are very addictive!<br>
Use it with care <img alt=";-)" src="https://i1.wp.com/smarterpoland.pl/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif?w=456" class="wp-smiley" data-recalc-dims="1"></p>
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