Sticky Note Sunflower

What you are seeing is a growth pattern of sticky notes that uses the Golden Angle (137.5 degrees) and then slowly decreases. This angle is commonly found in the plants all around us because it is an optimal angle for growth. It was a lot of fun playing with the growth angle while creating memorizin

a sunflower spiral pattern made with stickynotes

What you are seeing is a growth pattern of sticky notes that uses the Golden Angle (137.5 degrees) and then slowly decreases. This angle is commonly found in the plants all around us because it is an optimal angle for growth.

It was a lot of fun playing with the growth angle while creating memorizing spirals in this code, so I created a version for everyone to play with (see below):

https://editor.p5js.org/fractalkitty/present/vThUavVYE (on p5.js) or:

There is lots of fun to discover here. The fractal starts using the Golden Angle of Phi (137.5) and then decreases. You will find interesting behaviors when the angles approach numbers that divide into multiples of 360 more easily (40, 45, 60, 90, 120, 180, etc…). I wanted to do so much more, but had to stop somewhere.

If you want to know more about Phi, many mathematicians and creative types have presented it better than I (see below):