Transform your abilities

Transformations are used to transform shapes from one position to another or from one size to another.

There are 4 main transformations:

Transformation Description
REFLECTION You may have met reflections before when looking at symmetry. Reflections create a "mirror image" of a shape.
ROTATION You may have met rotations before when looking at symmetry. Rotations turn a shape a certain distance around a fixed point.
TRANSLATION Translations move a shape by sliding it around.
ENLARGEMENT Enlaragements make a shape bigger (or smaller).

 

1) REFLECTIONS
A reflection is made with the use of a mirror line. Each corner of the shape is reflected to the opposite side of the mirror line. The reflected image of each corner is perpendicular (at right-angles) to the mirror line and is the same distance from the mirror line as the original corners.

 

2) ROTATIONS
A rotation is made about a centre of rotation with the distance rotated indicated by the angle of rotation. A positive rotation goes anti-clockwise and a negative rotation goes clockwise. The rotation is made by connecting a corner of the shape to the centre of rotation and rotating it.

 

3) TRANSLATIONS
A translation is shown as 2 numbers in a matrix e.g. . The x means how many units you should slide the shape horizontally and the y means how many units you should slide the shape vertically. A positive x means moving to the right while a negative x means moving to the left. A positive y means moving up while a negative y means moving down.

 

4) ENLARGEMENTS
An enlargement is made with a centre of enlargement and a scale factor which tells you the change in size. Join a corner of the shape to the centre of enlargement. Measure the length of this line. Multiply this by the scale factor and extend the line to this length. Repeat this with all of the corners and then join the ends up. A negative enlargement means the image is on the opposite side of the centre of enlargement.