Ichiro Tanioka
I am interested in broad potential applications of tessellation /
geometric patterns to education in lower elementary.
I have been developing various educational materials as puzzles for
pupils to effectively obtain fundamental idea of geometry and art
through play.
An unexpectedly wide variety of geometric patterns are emerged by pupils from their assembling efforts of 78 identical simple pieces of equilateral triangles. Each side of the piece is divided horizontally in two colors, white and dark green, but two sides are differently colored; the one side is called Mt. Fuji named after the highest mountain in Japan with a noble triangular figure covered by white snow on the top. And the other side is called Kakigori (Japanese shaved ice) with green tea flavored syrup is topped on the white shaved. Hexagonal frames are given to pupils for pursuing their own periodic patterns by filling with pieces through rotating and flipping them.