Yesterday I posed the question of how to draw a map of a playing field.  The first thing to do is decide on the scale. I like to see people use as much of the paper as possible, but there is another consideration too, as I shall show.

With some students, getting them to make good use of the paper is challenging for me. They draw in just the bottom corner. Though this experience is more to do with bar charts and similar graphs, its equally the case with maps and scale drawings.  But make mistake, choosing a good scale is NOT a trivial matter – I’ll make another post on this at the moment, directed at other tutors.

In this case we can use all the paper by using a scale of 1cm = 6m – Note that if we think centimetres for metres, 150 = 6 x 25 and 120 = 6 x 20.   I’d advise against this. In fact I’d advise against any scale that uses factor not based on 5, 2 or 1 (That is 50, 500, 0.5, 20, 200, 0.2, 10, 100 and so on).  These scales make the Maths much easier to understand, both in making the drawing and interpreting it.

I say this from experience without wanting to justify it much further now. Just think of times you have been abroad and the exchange rate is £1 = 60 of the local currency. The mental arithmetic working out how much you are spending becomes tricky.

I’ve waffled a lot today, lets get down to business.   I recommend a scale for this map with  1cm = 10m – 1:1000.

We would draw the full park as rectangle 15cm by 12cm. This only uses part of the paper but we do need space to a title, key and scale – and its better than the 1/4 of the space available I sometimes see.

We draw on the football pitch now. This will be 10cm by 6cm. Where we place it can be ‘trial an error. In fact, if you have scissors to hand (which won’t be likely in an exam!) we can cut out a rectangle with those dimensions and move it round the larger rectangle. We can also cut out a rectangle that is 2cm by 2cm for the play area.   The trees need to be 1cm from the edge and each other and at least 2cm from the football pitch. There is more than one solution but here is mine, with the distances shown in cm in my drawing, as your browser size won’t show the same distances
When you think you’ve finished its worth checking each of you positions and measurements again, to check they comply with the rules