21/1/25 Rotating Shapes
• To carry out a rotation, or to describe one, you need three
pieces of information:
(a) Angle of rotation.
(b) Direction of rotation (shouldn't be included for 180°
rotations.
(c) Coordinates of the centre of rotation.
• To rotate a shape around a point that is not the origin:
(a) Find the coordinates of the vertices of your object. Subtract
the centre of rotation from them.
(b) Rotate the shape as you would around the origin. To make
this simpler, we have formulas to imitate the rotation:
(1) 90° anti-clockwise rotation: (x, y) —> (-y, x); which is
"switch the coordinates, then change the sign of y."
(2) 180° rotation: (x, y) —> (-x, -y); which is "change the signs
of x & y."
(3) 90° clockwise rotation: (x, y) —> (y, -x); which is "switch
coordinates, then change the sign of x."
(c) Step B will give you the rotated shape, and by extension its
coordinates. Add back the centre of rotation to the new rotated
coordinates and plot them on the graph to connect.
• The centre of rotation when the object is rotated by 180° is a
point that is equidistant from both shapes and is between
them, not on the perimeter or outside.
• To find the centre of rotation when the object is rotated by
angles other than 180°:
(a) Connect corresponding points from the object and image.
This should create a line segment.
(b) Find the midpoint of the line segment. Draw a
perpendicular bisector; a line perpendicular to a line segment
that passes through the midpoint. You have to know the slope
of the bisector:
(1) Slope of segment; minus the corresponding coordinates
of the endpoints. Slope = y2 - y1 / x2 - x1 (fraction).
(2) The slope of the perpendicular bisector will be the
reciprocal of the segment slope with the opposite sign too.
Simply put, the rule is "flip the fraction and switch the
sign." For example, if the segment slope is 2 (or ²/₁), the
bisector slope will be -½.
(c) Repeat this for the other vertices.
(d) The point at which all the bisectors intersect is the centre of
rotation. If they don't all meet at one place, revise your
bisector slopes.
> Here, we have a line segment with the
end points (-3, 3) and (0, 1). To find the
slope:
– 1 - 3 = -2 || 0 - -3 = 3 || Slope = -⅔
> So, bisector slope will be /₂. where
the numerator = rise, denominator =
run, i.e, rise by 3 and run by 2.
> Midpoint is obviously (-1.5, 2).