Escher Lizard

Lizard Tessellation

I 3D printed many lizards for teaching about tessellation in primary mathematics classroom. This 3D model (STL file) is downloaded from Thingiverse at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:462739.

Printer: TEVO Little Monster

Slicing program: Repetier Host

Layer height: 0.2 mm, In-fill: 10%, Support: None.

With these 3D printed lizards, young children can have lots of fun playing with their hands and minds on. Some key questions that teachers can ask or challenge students when playing:

  • Can you put them together without leaving gaps or overlaps? (approaching definition of tessellation)
  • Do you think they can all fit together if you have a million of them? Why do you think so?
  • What transformation do you need to fit / connect them together? (rotation or turn)
  • If you flip some of them, can they still fit together?
  • How many ways can any two lizards fit together?
  • How many neighbours does each lizard have when it is fully surrounded?
  • How many orientations are there for this lizard tessellation?

I also made a stop-motion video using these lizards. This could be another activity for students to explain what they know about tessellation, and at the same time develop their ICT skills.

For higher level learning, young children may ask how they are created and they would like to create their own tessellation. To this, they can research about Escher to find out more. Lizards (Reptiles) is a mathematical art work by M. C. Escher in March 1943. I also found a good video explaining about the creation of this lizard tessellation.

Challenge

So, the lizard came from a hexagon. Can you see how many hexagons are there in the picture on the left? If the area of a hexagon (makes a lizard) is 0.2 square metres, how many lizards do you need to cover the living room floor of 24 square meters?