A gallery of beautiful photos of cast ironwork friezes in Australia with a mathematical discussion of the classification of frieze patterns.
Patterns that repeat in a line are strangely interesting. How many types are there and how do you tell one type from another?
Some local pupils lost a geometric opportunity recently as they surveyed the cars in the car park. Did you know that car tyres, and the wheels that they on, are a rich source of geometry?
In how many ways can you fit all three pieces together to make shapes with line symmetry?
There are more than five solutions to this problem - how many can you find?
Can you find them all?
Additional printable copies of the shapes can be found here.
Try changing the question a bit:
For example, design your own set of three shapes (drawn on a square grid, as above), keep the total area 10. How many ways can they be arranged to make symmetrical shapes? Can you find a set of three such shapes, which have more valid arrangements than the shapes from the original problem? Can you find three such shapes which can never be arranged to make a symmetrical shape?