Tessellation

Intriguing Tessellations
http://members.aol.com/tessellations/
Curiosity spurred nature artist Marjorie Rice (with no formal training beyond high school mathematics) to discover four new tessellating pentagons in the late 1970's.  Including those Rice discovered, only fourteen tessellating pentagons have been uncovered, and the question of whether or not there are more remains unsolved. To learn about Rice's discovery, follow the link to "Perplexing Pentagons."  Links to Rice's amazing tessellating art (based on the patterns she created) are found below each pentagon design.

Tessellating Animation

http://www18.big.or.jp/~mnaka/home.index.html

Japanese artist Makoto Nakamura has taken tessellations a step beyond the plane with his awesome animations.  See his tessellated birds fly, his tessellated fish swim, and his tessellated dancers dance.  Next, for the do-not-miss-it click

of the day, visit Nakamura's Jigsaw Puzzles (look for the link at the bottom of the page.)  Here you will have a chance to reassemble tessellated cats, pigeons, gorillas and more.  Each interactive puzzle is unique and intriguing in its own way.  I

guarantee everyone in your family or classroom  be clamoring for a turn.  Having trouble? Try clicking the pieces to rotate them.

Tessellation Tool
http://www.boxermath.com/plp/modules/online/
If all this tessellated art has you eager to create your own patterns, take a look at this cool tool.  Start by dragging a shape onto the white board.  Next, you rotate or color your shape, and repeat as needed.  All of the polygons have sides of equal length, so they fit together perfectly.  Two more sites with interactive design tools are Pattern Blocks(http://www.arcytech.org/java/patterns/patterns_j.shtml) and Virtual Manipulatives
(http://matti.usu.edu/nlvm/enu/navd/frames_asid_169_g_1_t_2.html).

Totally Tessellated

http://library.thinkquest.org/16661/

Don't skip over this opening splash screen too quickly.  Take a few moments to scroll through the image gallery by clicking on the tiny Load New Images link.  Wasn't thatworth it?  Totally Tessellated was a first place winner in the 1998 ThinkQuest challenge, created by a team of three high school seniors.  It is my pick of the day because of the breadth and excellence of

its coverage.  It also is the only one of today's sites that has a section on M.C. Escher, the Dutch artist and father of modern-day tessellations.