First try the Dilate slider to get a simple visual idea that dilating is about growing in scale (doubling, tripling, quadrupling, etc). [br]To shrink, go less than 1. Half size would be 0.5. Watch what happens when you go into a negative dilation.[br]Just for reference, to create a dilation like this, you would want to place the centerpoint of your dilation at the midpoint of the base of the object.[br][br]To better understand how to solve typical math problems which will have you dilate with the centerpoint at the origin (0,0), you should use the other slider DilateAboutOrigin.

[b]Assignment : [/b][br][list=1][br][*]Write down the coordinates of the original figure (ABCD)[br][*]Use the DilateAboutOrigin slider to scale up by factor of 2, 3, 4, and 5 and jot down the new coordinates each time you scale up. [br][*]Scale down to 0.5 and note it's coordinates.[br][*]What do you notice? [br][*]What's a rule you can apply for dilations centered at the origin?[br][/list]