Basically, a tessellation is a
way to tile a floor (that goes on forever) with shapes so
that there is no overlapping and no gaps. Remember the last
puzzle you put together? Well, that
was a tessellation! The shapes were just really weird.
| Example: |
 |
We usually add a few more rules
to make things interesting!
REGULAR TESSELLATIONS:
- RULE #1: The
tessellation must tile a floor (that goes on forever) with
no overlapping or gaps.
- RULE #2: The
tiles must be regular polygons - and all the same.
- RULE #3: Each
vertex must look the same.
| What's a vertex?
|
 |
where all
the "corners" meet! |
What can we tessellate using these
rules?
Triangles? Yep!
Notice what happens
at each vertex!
The interior angle of each
equilateral triangle is
60 degrees.....
60 + 60 + 60 + 60 + 60 + 60 = 360 degrees
Continued on the
next
page
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