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WHAT IS TESSELLATION? 1.1 Definition A tessellation is created when a shape is repeated over and over again covering a plane without any gaps or overlaps. Another word for a tessellation is a tiling. A dictionary will tell you that the word "tessellate" means to form or arrange small squares in a checkered or mosaic pattern. The word "tessellate" is derived from the Ionic version of the Greek word "tesseres," which in English means "four." The first tilings were made from square tiles. A regular polygon has 3 or 4 or 5 or more sides and angles, all equal. A regular tessellation means a tessellation made up of congruent regular polygons. [Remember: Regular means that the sides of the polygon are all the same length. Congruent means that the polygons that you put together are all the same size and shape.] Only three regular polygons tessellate in the Euclidean plane: triangles, squares or hexagons. We can't show the entire plane, but imagine that these are pieces taken from planes that have been tiled. Here are examples of

a tessellation of triangles a tessellation of squares a tessellation of hexagons

When you look at these three samples you can easily notice that the squares are lined up with each other while the triangles and hexagons are not. Also, if you look at 6 triangles at a time, they form a hexagon, so the tiling of triangles and the tiling of hexagons are similar and they cannot be formed by directly lining shapes up under each other - a slide (or a glide!) is involved. You can work out the interior measure of the angles for each of these polygons:

Shape

Angle measure in degrees

triangle square pentagon hexagon more than six sides

60 90 108 120 more than 120 degrees

Since the regular polygons in a tessellation must fill the plane at each vertex, the interior angle must be an exact divisor of 360 degrees. This works for the triangle, square, and hexagon, and you can show working tessellations for these figures. For all the others, the interior angles are not exact divisors of 360 degrees, and therefore those figures cannot tile the plane.

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Naming Conventions

A tessellation of squares is named "4.4.4.4". Here's how: choose a vertex, and then look at one of the polygons that touch that vertex. How many sides does it have?

Since it's a square, it has four sides, and that's where the first "4" comes from. Now keep going around the vertex in either direction, finding the number of sides of the polygons until you get back to the polygon you started with. How many polygons did you count? There are four polygons, and each has four sides.

For a tessellation of regular congruent hexagons, if you choose a vertex and count the sides of the polygons that touch it, you'll see that there are three polygons and each has six sides, so this tessellation is called "6.6.6":

A tessellation of triangles has six polygons surrounding a vertex, and each of them has three sides: "3.3.3.3.3.3".

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Semi-regular Tessellations

You can also use a variety of regular polygons to make semi-regular tessellations. A semi regular tessellation has two properties which are:

1. It is formed by regular polygons. 2. The arrangement of polygons at every vertex point is identical.

Here are the eight semi-regular tessellations:

Interestingly there are other combinations that seem like they should tile the plane because the arrangements of the regular polygons fill the space around a point. For example:

If you try tiling the plane with these units of tessellation you will find that they cannot be extended infinitely. Fun is to try this yourself.

1. Hold down on one of the images and copy it to the clipboard. 2. Open a paint program. 3. Paste the image. 4. Now continue to paste and position and see if you can tessellate it.

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MY TESSELLATION 2.1 Explanations Of My Tessellation

This is my 2-D tessellation that is look like factory. I used graph paper to design it and I used colour pencils to colour it because I think that using colour pencil to colour it is more harmony than using computer. Below are the explanations on how I construct the tessellations.

Step 1: First, start with a shape that is known to tessellate, in this case draw a square and mark A, B, C and D for the four sides.

Step 2: Then, I construct the roof of the factory on the lower part of the square. Copy the lower part then paste on the upper part of the square. After that, hide the square that construct before.

Step 3: Done, this is the image after I paste the lower part of the square on the upper part of the square.

Step 4: After that, I Create the tessellation pattern by repeating the shape as many times.

Step 5: Lastly, I coloured the tessellations with my favourite colour because I want my tessellations look harmony.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

Charles Randall, Frank K. Lester, Jr. Anne M. Bloomer (1996) Problem-solving Experience In Mathematics Grade 1 : Teachers Sourcebook. United States of America.

Wells. D (1993). The Guinness Book Of Brain Teasers. Enfield : Guiness Publishing Ltd.

Internet Tesselation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation. Accessed on 07 July 2009

What Is Tesselation?. http://mathforum.org/sum95/suzanne/whattess.html. Accesed on 07 July 2008.

Tesselation tutorial. http://mathforum.org/sum95/suzanne/tess.intro.html. Accessed on 07 July 2009.

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REFLECTION With the name of Allah the most creator and the most merciful. Salam and selawat we pack upon Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. Alhamdulillah, after the tough challenge, finally we succeed to finish up this coursework. After we had finished this coursework, we know that it is not easy to make a coursework. It needs a lot of commitment, knowledge and patients. First of all, we want to thanks to Mr. Pusparajan because give this assignment to us. This assignment gives us more benefits. When we do this assignment, we gain a lot of knowledge about to identify and examine physical models of polyhedral and classify the characteristics of 2-D and 3-D shapes. Besides that, we also know the way to recognise and explore the properties of tessellations. We want to thanks very much to our lecture again because he willing to help us in completing this assignment and also guide us to complete this assignment. Without his help, we know that we cant finish this coursework properly. Lastly, we feel very satisfied after finished up this coursework. We get a lot of information that we know we will used it in our life. Thats all, thank you.

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