A gallery of beautiful photos of cast ironwork friezes in Australia with a mathematical discussion of the classification of frieze patterns.

When a strip has vertical symmetry there always seems to be a second place where a mirror line could go. Perhaps you can find a design that has only one mirror line across it. Or, if you thought that. . . .

I noticed this about streamers that have rotation symmetry : if there was one centre of rotation there always seems to be a second centre that also worked. Can you find a design that has only. . . .

Investigate the transfomations of the plane given by the 2 by 2 matrices with entries taking all combinations of values 0. -1 and +1.

A design is repeated endlessly along a line - rather like a stream of paper coming off a roll. Make a strip that matches itself after rotation, or after reflection
Patterns that repeat in a line are strangely interesting. How many types are there and how do you tell one type from another?

Sort the frieze patterns into seven pairs according to the way in which the motif is repeated.

Explore the effect of reflecting in two parallel mirror lines.

Does changing the order of transformations always/sometimes/never produce the same transformation?

Plex lets you specify a mapping between points and their images. Then you can draw and see the transformed image.

See the effects of some combined transformations on a shape. Can you describe what the individual transformations do?

Why not challenge a friend to play this transformation game?

How many different transformations can you find made up from combinations of R, S and their inverses? Can you be sure that you have found them all?

This resources contains a series of interactivities designed to support work on transformations at Key Stage 4.

I took the graph y=4x+7 and performed four transformations. Can you find the order in which I could have carried out the transformations?

Investigate what happens to the equations of different lines when you reflect them in one of the axes. Try to predict what will happen. Explain your findings.

Given that ABCD is a square, M is the mid point of AD and CP is perpendicular to MB with P on MB, prove DP = DC.

Explore the effect of reflecting in two intersecting mirror lines.
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?

Consider a watch face which has identical hands and identical marks for the hours. It is opposite to a mirror. When is the time as read direct and in the mirror exactly the same between 6 and 7?

Two tangents are drawn to the other circle from the centres of a pair of circles. What can you say about the chords cut off by these tangents. Be patient - this problem may be slow to load.

In how many ways can you fit all three pieces together to make shapes with line symmetry?

How many unique symmetrical shapes can you make by shading four small triangles?

A moveable screen slides along a mirrored corridor towards a centrally placed light source. A ray of light from that source is directed towards a wall of the corridor, which it strikes at 45 degrees. . . .

The centre of the larger circle is at the midpoint of one side of an equilateral triangle and the circle touches the other two sides of the triangle. A smaller circle touches the larger circle and. . . .

Colour the squares of the square tablecloth so that each square is the same colour as all the symmetrically placed squares and a different colour from the rest of the squares.

In a snooker game the brown ball was on the lip of the pocket but it could not be hit directly as the black ball was in the way. How could it be potted by playing the white ball off a cushion?

The shortest path between any two points on a snooker table is the straight line between them but what if the ball must bounce off one wall, or 2 walls, or 3 walls?

A fire-fighter needs to fill a bucket of water from the river and take it to a fire. What is the best point on the river bank for the fire-fighter to fill the bucket ?.

Can you explain why it is impossible to construct this triangle?

What angle is needed for a ball to do a circuit of the billiard table and then pass through its original position?