Tessellations
10-16
Interesting patterns are often used on
floors, wallpaper, and fabrics. The
designs are often made of polygons.
A design like the one shown at
the right is called a tessellation.
A tessellation is made from congruent
figures placed so that they completely
cover a surface without overlapping
or leaving gaps.
Many polygons will form a tessellation.
Follow these steps to form a tessellation
made of squares.
Draw square ABCDon dot paper.
Turn ABCDone-half turn clockwise
around the midpoint (halfway point)
of BC. You get square 2.
Turn square 2 one-half turn
clockwise around the midpoint of
its side to get square 3.
Turn square 3 one-half turn
clockwise around the midpoint of
its side to get square 4.
Copy the figure on dot paper and continue to draw
half-turn images. You should see that a square
tessellates (covers) the plane.
Study these examples.
Circles do not
All parallelograms tessellate. There
tessellate. are gaps.
D
1
4
2
3
A
B
C
A tessellation may contain
one or more different types
of polygons.
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