What is the Golden Mean? Have you ever looked at a sea shell? or seen a piece of pollen under a microscope? The golden mean is a number often found when taking the ratios of distances in simple geometric figures such as the pentagram, decagon and dodecagon.  It is also known as the divine proportion, golden mean, and golden section.

Ready:
Take a look at these websites, and find out what the "Golden Mean" is, who discovered it, and three places it is found. You will also find the "ratio", and how it works.

Set:
Get your paper and ruler; draw the Golden Mean using the ratio you found in your research.

Go:
Now you are framiliar with the Golden Mean, and you have a layout of the ratio. Your team will now go to your Flash template and use your ratio layout to create an animation of the Golden Mean, and the information you have researched.

1) First create a file on the desktop, use your last name to name the file.
2) Click here to download demo.fla, and save in your new file.
3) Open demo.fla. Flash should be open on your computer, go to File – Open, and find demo.fla.

Demo.fla is a type of file called a “template”. Flash may be a new program to you, click here for a little tour.

4) The green square is in the 1st frame of your flash movie, and it is on the “square” layer. Click in the 1st frame of the “square” layer. Now, add a second keyframe to the timeline. This second keyframe will also contain 1 green square.
5) In this second frame, copy (apple+c) the green square, and paste (apple+v). You now have 2 green squares in the second frame.
6) You will resize the second green square according to the Golden Mean sequence. Use the W/H in the properties box to resize any symbols.
7) You will use the move tool (or the arrow keys if it is a very small move, called a "nudge") to move your new square in the appropriate place to create the spiral pattern of the Golden Mean.
8) When your two squares are in the correct place, add another keyframe, and follow steps 5 - 7. (remember to always keep your original squares, and add only one per keyframe.)

Things to watch for:
Units should be set to inches (if not: in the modify – document – ruler units, may be on pixels by default).
If you double click on the square the rest of the “stage” will gray out, and the square will be bright. You have opened the symbol, and need to click on the icon that says Scene 1.

9) When you have completed the Golden Mean sequence up to 5, test your movie by hitting the Return key.
10) Next, add a text box to your movie.
11) Type the information you gathered in your research into the text box.

When you and your partner are all finished with your movie you can export it as a shockwave file, and instert it into an HTML page. This HTML page will be your main Golden Mean page that you will build on throughout the following lessons.


Next step: Egyptian Rope Measuring technique...