A tessellation is when shapes fit together perfectly without any gaps or overlaps, like puzzle pieces that cover a whole floor.
Imagine you're playing with tiles on the kitchen floor, some are square, some are hexagonal (like honeycombs), and others might be triangles. If you arrange them so they all touch each other exactly, no space is left between them, and none of them stick out, that’s a tessellation!
Like Floor Tiles or Mosaics
Think of floor tiles in your living room. If the tiles are square and match up perfectly, they make a simple tessellation. But it can get even cooler: sometimes artists use different shapes, like triangles, squares, and hexagons, to create colorful patterns on walls or floors. These are also tessellations, but with more variety!
Shapes That Never Stop
Some shapes work really well for tessellations because they can keep repeating forever, like the tiles in a big hallway. You might see this in bathrooms, on sidewalks, or even in nature, like how bees build their hives using hexagons.
Tessellations are all about fitting together, just like your favorite puzzle!
Examples
- A honeycomb is a tessellation made of hexagons.
- Tiles on a bathroom floor often form a tessellating pattern.
- A soccer ball's surface uses repeating shapes.
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See also
- How do shapes interact?
- How Do Bees Make Their Hives? / Why Do Bees Build Hexagonal Honeycombs?
- How Does An extra little bit for the Happy Ending Problem Work?
- How Does Determining whether a shape can be tessellated Work?
- How Does Creating Geodesics on a Sphere Work?