Simon Frankau's blog
Haskell + Laser = Penrose
I've always wanted a set of Penrose tiles, and now I've made some! I wrote a small Haskell program to generate a regular tessellation of kites and darts (not a Penrose tiling) as an SVG, and then used the laser-cutter at work to cut the shapes out of 3mm perspex. I actually cut out a full blue set (kites and darts) and a full yellow set (kites and darts), and mixed them, so I now have two sets! One for home, and one for work.
I learnt a couple of things: 1. The ratio of kite and dart pieces in use tends to the golden ratio. I've cut out the pieces in a 1:1 ratio, and end with some spares. 2. Putting the pieces into a Penrose tiling is not quite as easy as you'd think. 3. But it's kinda addictive! I'm most tempted to cut out a pile more in order to be able to make bigger patterns.
Posted 2015-10-11.