Step by Step Scale Drawing Example

Scenario: below is a large FedEx box. The dimensions of the box are as follows: (40.16 cm x 32.86 cm x 25.88 cm). Hint (in math, the length of an object refers to the measurement of the longest side. The second number is the width and the third number is the height).

This is your task, on a sheet of regular print paper/grid paper, draw the box to scale.

Step1: Determine the size of the scale that you want to use for this activity. The easiest way to determine a scale is by doing this: determine how much space you will allocate for the longest side of the box and measure it. Now that you have determined how much space is needed for the length of the box, you can then go ahead and measure that with a centimeter rule.

Step2: To make it easy to work with, for this activity we are going to assume that you will use your paper in landscape form. Therefore, I have estimated that you will create a space of 10 centimeters for the length of space available for the box. Hint: it is always easier to work with scales 1, 2, 5, 10, 100 for beginners.

Step 3: divide the length of the box by 10. Therefore, you should get something like 40.16/10= 4.016. For simplicities sake, we will round to the nearest whole number. Therefore, we will round to 4. As a result of this, we will therefore, use a scale of 1:4.

That scale means that for every 1 centimeter on the paper, it will be equivalent to 4 cm in the real world.

Step 4: Now let us draw our box to scale.

Length= 40.16 cm/4= 10.04CM= 10 cm

Width: 32.86 cm/4= 8.215cm = 8cm

Height: 25.88 cm/4= 6.47cm= 6

Based on the above measurements our scale drawing would have the following measurements (10cmx8cmx6cm)

Step5: Now our box will be able to fit on our paper (1cm:4cm) or 1:4. The final thing you need to do now is write at the bottom of your drawing the size of the scale that you used. That will allow others to very easily convert your scale drawing into back into the same size box if necessary, or even make a bigger or smaller box using the same ratio.

Finally, you can apply this principle to make any large object small enough to fit on any paper. This is what architects and engineers do when they draw complex structures.