Grade 5 Vetruvian Kid

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a military engineer and architect. He was very interested in discovering what relationships existed between the different parts of the body. Da Vinci was very interested in this work and extended it.

Here are some of the relationships Vitruvius descovered about an adult male:

1. The length of a man''s outspread arms is equal to his height.
2. From the roots of the hair to the bottom of the chin is a tenth of a man's height.
3. From the bottom of the chin to the top of a man's head is one eighth of his height.
4. The greatest width of the shoulders contains in itself the fourth part of the man.
5. From the elbow to the tip of the hand will be the fifth part of a man.
6. From the elbow to the angle of the armpit will be the eighth part of the man.
7. The whole hand will be the tenth part of the man.
8. The foot is the seventh part of the man.
9. From the sole of the foot to below the knee will be the fourth part of the man.
10. The distance from the bottom of the chin to the nose and from the roots of the hair to the eyebrows is, in each case the same, and like the ear, a third of the face.
11. The space between the legs will be an equilateral triangle

Our question is, "Is there such a thing as a Vitruvian Kid?"

Students took pictures of themselves, printed the pictures off and did some careful measuring. We were looking for ratios that might appear so we typed all of our information into a spreadsheet and then explored.

(based on the project Exploring DaVinci)