SolidsWW Flash Applet Sample Problem 1

Sample Problem with solidsWW.swf embedded

This sample problem shows how to use this versatile applet.

A standard WeBWorK PG file with an embedded applet has six sections:

1. A tagging and description section, that describes the problem for future users and authors,
2. An initialization section, that loads required macros for the problem,
3. A problem set-up section that sets variables specific to the problem,
4. An Applet link section that inserts the applet and configures it, (this section is not present in WeBWorK problems without an embedded applet)
5. A text section, that gives the text that is shown to the student, and
6. An answer and solution section, that specifies how the answer(s) to the problem is(are) marked for correctness, and gives a solution that may be shown to the student after the problem set is complete.

The sample file attached to this page shows this; below the file is shown to the left, with a second column on its right that explains the different parts of the problem that are indicated above. A screenshot of the applet embedded in this WeBWorK problem is shown below:

There are other example problems using this applet:
solidsWW Flash Applet Sample Problem 2
solidsWW Flash Applet Sample Problem 3
And other problems using applets:
Derivative Graph Matching Flash Applet Sample Problem
USub Applet Sample Problem
trigwidget Applet Sample Problem
solidsWW Flash Applet Sample Problem 1
GraphLimit Flash Applet Sample Problem 2
Other useful links:
Flash Applets Tutorial
Things to consider in developing WeBWorK problems with embedded Flash applets

PG problem file	Explanation
##DESCRIPTION ## Solids of Revolution ##ENDDESCRIPTION ##KEYWORDS('Solids of Revolution') ## DBsubject('Calculus') ## DBchapter('Applications of Integration') ## DBsection('Solids of Revolution') ## Date('7/31/2011') ## Author('Barbara Margolius') ## Institution('Cleveland State University') ## TitleText1('') ## EditionText1('2011') ## AuthorText1('') ## Section1('') ## Problem1('') ######################################################################## # This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation # under the grant DUE-0941388. ########################################################################	This is the tagging and description section of the problem. Note that any line that begins with a "#" character is a comment for other authors who read the problem, and is not interpreted by WeBWorK. The description is provided to give a quick summary of the problem so that someone reading it later knows what it does without having to read through all of the problem code. All of the tagging information exists to allow the problem to be easily indexed. Because this is a sample problem there isn't a textbook per se, and we've used some default tagging values. There is an on-line list of current chapter and section names and a similar list of keywords. The list of keywords should be comma separated and quoted (e.g., KEYWORDS('calculus','derivatives')).
DOCUMENT(); loadMacros( "PGstandard.pl", "AppletObjects.pl", "MathObjects.pl", );	This is the initialization section of the problem. The first executed line of the problem must be the DOCUMENT(); command. Note that every command must end with a semicolon. The loadMacros command loads information that works behind the scenes. For our purposes we can usually just load the macros shown here and not worry about things further.
TEXT(beginproblem()); $showPartialCorrectAnswers = 1; Context("Numeric"); $a = random(2,10,1); $b = random(2,10,1); $xy = 'y'; $func1 = "$a*sin(pi*y/8)+2"; $func2 = "$b*sin(pi*y/2)+2"; $xmax = max(Compute("$a+2"),Compute("$b+2"),9); $shapeType = 'circle'; $correctAnswer =Compute("64*$a+4*pi*$a^2+32*pi");	This is the problem set-up section of the problem. The solidsWW.swf applet will accept a piecewise defined function either in terms of x or in terms of y. We set $xy equal to y to define the function in terms of y. The two pieces of the function are defined in the variables $func1 and $func2, though any variable names beginning with the $ character will do. The applet also needs a maximum x-value for the profile graph. Usually you will want the $shapeType to be 'circle' as it is here, but other types are accepted by the applet including: 'ellipse', 'rectangle' and 'poly'. For 'ellipse' and 'rectangle' you will need to set the ratio of the side lengths. For 'poly' you will need to set the number of sides of the regular polygon. They are also set in the code for this problem, but the information is ignored by the applet.