Draw a Perfect Star

A star punishes a different weakness than a circle does. Nothing here is curved: a five-point star is ten straight edges and ten corners, and the whole shape only reads as a star if all five arms come out the same length, the five tips land the same distance from the centre, and each arm sits 72 degrees around from the last.

Five-point star target showing the vertical mirror axis, the outer circle its five tips sit on and the inner circle its five corners sit on
The star target, with the two rings and the mirror line every point has to respect: tips on the outer ring, inner corners on the smaller one, 72 degrees between arms.

Draw yours here and the score tells you where the symmetry broke. Your stroke is measured on shape match (are the arms actually where a star's arms belong?), coverage (all five points closed, not four and a gap), smoothness (straight edges rather than bowed ones) and scale, then laid over the target so a short arm or a drifting tip is impossible to miss.

Freehand stars fail in predictable ways: the first arms come out well and the last one has to stretch or shrink to close the loop, the bottom two legs droop inwards, and the inner corners creep outwards until the star starts to look like a flower. Aiming at the tips before you start - and keeping the inner corners on their own smaller circle - is what turns a five-point scribble into a symmetrical star.

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