Spirograph

A digital spirograph, at the involuntary suggestion of Ilaria Fanelli (whom I thank very much for the idea).

Using the controls on the right you can adjust the number of teeth of the internal gear, the position of the writing pen along a radius of the small circle and other animation parameters.

It is interesting how many characteristics of the design created (e.g. the number of petals or the number of times that the small gear must turn around the large one before the drawn curve closes) depend on the ratio between the number of teeth of the two gears.

If you like the trajectories generated by circles moving on other circles, you can watch the animation on epicycles.

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