Name: ______________________________
The da Vinci Project
The Vitruvian Man is a world-renowned drawing created by Leonardo da
Vinci around the year 1487. The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions or, less often, Proportions of Man. The drawing is based on the correlations of ideal human proportions with geometry described by the ancient
Roman architect Vitruvius. Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion among the Classical orders of architecture. Other artists had attempted to depict the concept, with less success. The drawing is traditionally named in honor of the architect.
Leonardo da Vinci was the scientist and artist who combined these skills to draft extensive instructions for other artists on how to proportion the human body in painting and sculpture. Three of
Leonardo's guidelines were:
 height is equal to the span of outstretched arms.
 length of the hand is one-ninth the standing height.
 the distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand (forearm) is a quarter of a man's height.
Procedure:
1.
Using a ruler and a length of string, measure the height, armspan, and the hand length of your lab partners. All measurements should be in centimeters. Compile this information in the table shown on the back of this page. Be sure to use the appropriate sig figs! Get additional data from all your classmates.
Data Processing:
A.
Construct the three scatter plots described.

Height of a person on the x-axis and the person’s armspan on the y-axis.

Height of a person on the x-axis and the length of a person’s hand on the yaxis.

Height of a person on the x-axis and their forearm on the y-axis.
B.
Draw a line of best fit through your collected data.
C.
Mark two points on the line of best fit and determine the slope of this line. Please show all calculations on your graph.
D.
The slope of these lines can be compared to da Vinci’s proportions. How well do these proportions match the class data?
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Above and Beyond:
Michael Phelps is approximately 193 cm tall. How big are his hands? His forearms? His armspan?

Data:
Will S.
Name
Sara V.
Lisa P.
Tatiana C.
Dan F.
Athenee C.
Will P.
Natasha S.
Brooke S.
Helen D.
SOFIA
Jake
Anna M.
Kristina V.
Will D.
KYLE
John L.
Andrew Z.
Sabina M.
Bahar S.
Matt J.
Height Armspan Hand Forearm
181.00cm 180.50cm 19.00cm 47.00cm
158.00cm 172.00cm 17.50cm 42.50cm
161.00cm 127.01cm 17.00cm 36.05cm
165.03cm 173.07cm 18.50cm 41.60cm
171.30 cm 176.00 cm 19.50 cm 48.00 cm
140.50 cm 156.60 cm 16.20 cm 38.20 cm
190.79cm 181.11cm 19.20cm 45.00cm
176.05cm 168.66cm 19.25cm 41.68cm
167.80 cm 163.71 cm 17.92 cm 42.40 cm
176.89 cm 165.62 cm 19.01 cm 45.42 cm
166.00 cm 167.50 cm 18.00 cm 41.20 cm
171.00 cm 169.30 cm 18.00 cm 45.00 cm
160.00 cm 155.10 cm 14.20 cm 40.10 cm
171.90 cm 172.00 cm 17.50 cm 45.00 cm
164.50 cm 158.10 cm 16.80 cm 44.90 cm
173.56 cm 172.00 cm 18.20 cm 45.50 cm
171.00 cm 183.00 cm 19.00 cm 46.00 cm
166.00 cm 170.50 cm 19.00 cm 47.00 cm
165.10 cm 167.51 cm 18.51 cm 42.10 cm
157.23 cm 147.22 cm 15.70 cm 39.00 cm
184.56 cm 182.51 cm 18.24 cm 45.04 cm