A geometry template is a piece of clear plastic with cut-out shapes for use in

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and other subjects in

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

through

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

. It also has various measurements on its sides to be used like a

ruler A ruler, sometimes called a rule, scale, line gauge, or metre/meter stick, is an instrument used to make length measurements, whereby a length is read from a series of markings called "rules" along an edge of the device. Usually, the instr ...

. In Australia, popular brands include Mathomat and MathAid.

Brands

Mathomat and Mathaid

Mathomat is a trademark used for a plastic stencil developed in Australia by Craig Young in 1969, who originally worked as an engineering tradesperson in the Government Aircraft Factories (GAF) in Melbourne before retraining and working as head of mathematics in a secondary school in Melbourne. Young designed Mathomat to address what he perceived as limitations of traditional mathematics drawing sets in classrooms, mainly caused by students losing parts of the sets. The Mathomat stencil has a large number of geometric shapes stencils combined with the functions of a technical drawing set (rulers, set squares, protractor and circles stencils to replace a compass). The template made use

polycarbonate Polycarbonates (PC) are a group of thermoplastic polymers containing carbonate ester, carbonate groups in their chemical structures. Polycarbonates used in engineering are strong, toughness, tough materials, and some grades are optically transp ...

– a new type of thermoplastic polymer when Mathomat first came out – which was strong and transparent enough to allow for a large number of stencil shapes to be included in its design without breaking or tearing. The first template was exhibited in 1970 at a mathematics conference in Melbourne along with a series of popular mathematics teaching lesson plan; it became an immediate success with a large number of schools specifying it as a required students purchase. As of 2017, the stencil is widely specified in Australian schools, chiefly for students at early secondary school level. The manufacturing of Mathomat was taken over in 1989 by the W&G drawing instrument company, which had a factory in Melbourne for manufacture of technical drawing instruments. Young also developed MathAid, which was initially produced by him when he was living in Ringwood, Victoria. He later sold the company. W&G published a series of teacher resource books for Mathomat authored by various teachers and academics who were interested in Mathomat as a teaching product.

References

{{Reflist Dimensional instruments Drawing aids Educational materials Geometry Mathematical tools

Brands

Mathomat and Mathaid

See also

References