Pronunciation: /kaɪt/ ?
|Manipulative 1: Kite Created with GeoGebra||
A kite is a quadrilateral with two sets of
Click on the blue points in manipulative 1 and drag them to change the
Properties of a Kite
- All kites are quadrilaterals.
- The area of a kite is
where p is the length of one diagonal and q is the
length of the other diagonal. See manipulative 1.
of a kite are
of a kite are congruent.
- An incircle can be inscribed into any convex kite.
- One of the diagonals of a convex kite divides the kite into two
The other diagonal of a convex kite divides the kite into two congruent triangles.
Construction of the Incircle of a Kite
|1||Start with a convex kite.|
|2||Construct the angular bisector of one of the angles connecting congruent sides.|
|3||Construct the angular bisector of one of the angles connecting non-congruent sides.|
|4||Label the intersection of bisectors from steps 2 and 3 as O.|
|5||Construct a line through O perpendicular to one of the sides.|
|6||Label the intersection of the line constructed in step 5 with the side to which it is perpendicular as P.|
|7||Construct a circle with center O and radius OP.|
Geometric Figure Made with Kites
Image courtesy R. A. Nonenmacher. Image licensed under
GNU Free Documentation License.
Click on the image for more information.
This tesselation using kites is called a deltoidal trihexagonal
tiling. To construct this tesselation, divide each hexagon into six kites by
drawing a segment from the midpoint of each side to the center. Then tesselate the
divided hexagon so that three hexagons share each vertex.
A deltoidal icositetrahedron is a polyhedron whose faces are kites. Click to print a
net of a deltoidal icositetrahedron
to cut out and paste together.
A deltoidal hexecontrahedron is a polyhedron whose faces are kites. Click to print a
net of a deltoidal hexecontrahedron
to cut out and past together. This geometric net is courtesy
- McAdams, David. Kite. lifeisastoryproblem.org. Life is a Story Problem LLC. 2010-03-04. http://www.lifeisastoryproblem.org/explore/kite.html.
Cite this article as:
Kite. 2010-03-04. All Math Words Encyclopedia. Life is a Story Problem LLC. http://www.allmathwords.org/en/k/kite.html.
2010-03-04: Added "References", Geometric figure made from kites. (McAdams, David.
2008-12-13: Added vocabulary links, properties of a kite, and construction of the incircle of a kite (McAdams, David.
2008-09-16: Initial version (McAdams, David.