Available · Math + Art · Runs in the browser

Me-Grams.

"A transformation project."

Students solve the seven classic tangram puzzles, then design a tangram of their own — one that has to be congruent, dilated, and perfectly square all at once. It ends as a printed puzzle booklet other students can actually solve.

Launch the project View student gallery

Translate · rotate · reflect

Grade Level

Grade 8

Duration

2–3 weeks

Cost

$0–$1,500

Subjects

Math + Art

Standards

8.G.A.1–4

Why this works

Transformations stop being vocabulary.

Most students meet translations, rotations, reflections, and dilations as four words to memorize for a test. Here they're the only tools available — you cannot solve a single puzzle, or build your own, without using them.

Math concepts

The whole 8.G.A cluster.

Every transformation shows up as something you do, not something you name. Congruence and similarity become design rules a student has to satisfy.

Translations, rotations, reflections
Congruence — same shape, same size
Dilations & scale factor
Composing polygons without gaps or overlaps

Design concepts

Constraint makes it hard.

A Me-Gram isn't free drawing. Five criteria have to hold at the same time, and the app checks all five — so students iterate until the geometry actually works.

Drafting to a quarter-inch grid
Revision driven by a real check
Decomposing a square into polygons

PBL outcomes

A puzzle someone else solves.

The project ends in a printed six-card booklet — a puzzle on each front, the answer on each back. Students trade booklets and solve each other's designs.

Six-puzzle two-sided booklet
Vector SVG of their own design
Laser-ready 6″ × 6″ etching file

Supplies

Free on paper — or cut from wood.

Designing, checking, and puzzle-building all happen in the web app, and the booklet only needs a printer. The one real expense is optional: a laser cutter turns the exported SVG into a physical wooden tangram set.

A computer or Chromebook with a web browser Already on hand
Printer + paper or cardstock (booklet and drafting grids) Optional
Scissors (to cut the booklet cards apart) Optional
Laser cutter or etcher — cuts the exported 6″ × 6″ SVG into real wooden tangram sets $200–$1,500
Plywood, MDF, or acrylic sheet for cutting Varies

🪵 The wood option: The 6″ × 6″ etching SVG exists so a laser cutter can turn a student's own Me-Gram into a physical set of pieces they can hold. Entry-level diode cutters start around $200; a classroom-grade CO₂ machine runs to $1,500 or beyond. Everything else in the project — designing, checking, the puzzle booklet — stays free, so the machine is a one-time purchase that serves every project you run after it. Many schools already have one in a makerspace or CTE shop, and local libraries often cut files for free.

🖨 Printing tip: Print the booklet two-sided, flipped on the long edge — the answer cards are deliberately mirrored so the backs line up with the fronts. Print the drafting grids at 100% scale with "fit to page" off, or an inch on paper won't be a true inch.

The curriculum

Four parts, and each one unlocks the next.

Students can't skip ahead: Part 2 opens only when all seven puzzles are solved, and Part 4 opens only when every piece of their own design is traced cleanly. The gate is the assessment.

Part 01 Solve the seven

Solve the seven.

For students

Before designing your own, master the classics. Fill each silhouette exactly with the seven pieces — drag a piece to translate it, and use the command bar to rotate and reflect it.

Seven puzzles, getting harder: Square, Rectangle, and Arrow Up to start; Butterfly and House next; then Duck and Speed Boat. Solving all seven unlocks Part 2.

For teachers

This is the transformation practice, disguised. Students who'd stall on a worksheet asking them to "reflect the figure across the y-axis" will happily reflect a triangle forty times to finish a duck.

A free-play version with tutorials — Tangram Interact — is available separately for warm-ups or for students who need more runway.

Part 02 The creative core

Me-Gram Maker.

For students

Draft your own Me-Gram on the six-inch grid. Click one point, then a second — every pair of clicks lays down one line segment, and everything snaps to the quarter inch. Keep it bold and simple; you'll be cutting it apart next.

Design criteria · all five must hold

At least 7 pieces.
At least two pieces are congruent — same shape and size.
At least two pieces are dilations of each other — same shape, different size.
Two pieces must combine to form a third.
All the pieces together form a square — the whole grid, no gaps, no overlaps.

Press Check my design and the app tests all five.

For teachers

The five criteria are where the geometry lives. "Two pieces combine to form a third" and "all pieces form a square" are genuinely hard to satisfy together — expect real revision, which is the point.

Part 03 Decompose it

Cut it into pieces.

For students

Trace each puzzle piece over your drawing. Click the dots in order around one shape, then close it by clicking your first dot again — the piece locks in with its own color.

Every part of your design has to end up inside a closed polygon. Press Check my pieces; Part 4 unlocks when everything is traced with no gaps and no overlaps.

For teachers

This step turns a drawing into a set of actual polygons the app can manipulate — and it's a quiet check on whether the design was ever really a valid dissection.

Part 04 Build the puzzles

Me-Gram Puzzle Maker.

For students

Your pieces come back at half size — a dilation with scale factor ½. Click a piece to select it, drag to translate, and use the keys to rotate 15° at a time or reflect it horizontally or vertically. Vertices and edges snap together when they nearly touch.

Arrange a silhouette, press Create puzzle, and trace its outline dot to dot. Then add it to your booklet — the goal is six puzzles.

For teachers

Part 4 is where students discover that their own seven pieces can make far more than one picture — the same set, transformed six different ways.

Full undo/redo throughout, and a "line up pieces" button that translates overlapping pieces apart when an arrangement gets tangled.

What they walk away with

Four things, all printable.

Everything a student makes comes back out of the app as a file or a page — nothing is trapped on screen.

The deliverable

A six-puzzle booklet.

Two sheets printed back to back and cut into six cards — each with a puzzle on the front and the polygons that solve it on the back. Downloads as a PDF.

Vector export

An SVG of their design.

Clean vector line work that scales to any size, plus a separate 6″ × 6″ etching file if you have a laser cutter and want real wooden or acrylic sets.

The math record

A transformation log.

The final print redraws every classic puzzle they solved beside the list of transformations they used to solve it — the evidence behind the artifact.

Launch Me-Grams See the 2025–26 gallery Try Tangram Interact

Grading

The app checks the geometry.

Design criteria and clean tracing are validated before a student can move on, so your rubric can focus on craft, creativity, and the transformation log.

Build a matching rubric

Weight what the app can't measure — the ambition of the design, the quality of the finished booklet, and how well a student can explain the transformations they used.

Open Rubric Maker More classroom tools

Try it with your class

Solve seven. Then build your own.

Open the project and solve a puzzle or two yourself — you'll know within five minutes whether your students will take to it. Then email me what you'd change.

Launch Me-Grams Email Tan

Me-Grams.

The whole 8.G.A cluster.

Constraint makes it hard.

A puzzle someone else solves.

Solve the seven.

Me-Gram Maker.

Cut it into pieces.

Me-Gram Puzzle Maker.

A six-puzzle booklet.

An SVG of their design.

A transformation log.

Build a matching rubric

Graf(It) Art

Music of Me

Solve seven. Then build your own.