Aspex Software United Kingdom

  Educational Software for young people

Shapes & Nets is a simple-to-use primary software which is especially valuable in two main areas: Maths Shape and Space, and Design Technology in Packaging, Design and Make.

Using Shapes & Nets one can draw and colour 2D and 3D shapes, cuboids, cones, cylinders etc. Rotate 2D shapes and 3D solids, see how 3D shapes flatten out into NETS Print the NETS and make real 3D shapes

Shapes are everywhere in the real world, many structures both natural and man-made comprise sets of 3D and 2D geometrical shapes. Take a look around and recognise how many cuboids, spheres, pyramids, prisms there are in the objects you see, touch and use everyday.

On close inspection you might notice that your computer is made up of different sized cuboids and prisms. How about the table or chair you are sitting on, the door to the room, the filing cabinet? And what about the Saturn V rocket, it seems to be made from lots of cylinders and cones! Geometry is all around us; in nature and in the things we make and use.

Shapes & Nets contains many 2D and 3D shapes and enables you to investigate them, change their properties to make them long and thin, or short and fat, translate them and rotate them. Shapes & Nets is a good tool for developing spatial concepts, helping children to gain an intuitive feel for shape and space.

Shapes & Nets gives a practical application for traditional geometrical concepts, and helps to improve the ability to recognize, visualize, represent, and transform geometric shapes. Most of us take geometry for granted, but using Shapes & Nets will help children apply their spatial awareness and knowledge of the properties of shapes and space to the real world.

Shapes & Nets is for Mathematics and Design & Technology pupils:

Manipulate shapes by translating, rotating, stretching and scaling.

Learn the relationship between a shapes and their nets.

Build packaging based on the pre-designed product packages included with the software by printing the nets of the shapes on to paper or card.

Investigate tessellation by building tessellating patterns of 2D shapes, both regular and irregular.

Investigate platonic shapes by building dice with various numbers of sides.

Design a street scene from pre-made shapes, print the nets of the street shapes and build a town as a class project.

Become familiarised with third angle projections for shapes and models.

Consider efficiency by thinking of different configurations of nets on a page.