Pottery Wheel

This simulation shows how a potter shapes a vase on a wheel. The vase spins about a vertical axis, and a smooth curve through seven handles sets its radius at each height. Students drag the handles left and right to widen or narrow the vase, and the top handle up to make it taller. Presets turn it into a bowl or a cylinder, a glaze selector colors it and a slider changes the wheel speed. Clicking the vase plays a tone. Readouts give the height, the widest point and how much it holds in liters, found from the integral of pi times radius squared. It links art with geometry, solids of revolution and volume.

• Drag the middle handle outward to make a round belly and watch the Holds readout rise.
• Press Bowl and then Cylinder and compare the capacity of each shape.
• Drag the top handle up to make a taller vase and read the new Height.
• Try to make two different vases that hold the same amount.
• Change Glaze and Wheel speed, then click the vase to hear it ring.

1. 1Explain that a symmetrical vase is fully described by its radius at each height.
2. 2Describe how changing the profile changes the volume a vase can hold.
3. 3Estimate and compare the capacity of different vase shapes.
4. 4Relate pottery shapes to solids of revolution.

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