### Just Rolling Round

P is a point on the circumference of a circle radius r which rolls, without slipping, inside a circle of radius 2r. What is the locus of P?

### Coke Machine

The coke machine in college takes 50 pence pieces. It also takes a certain foreign coin of traditional design. Coins inserted into the machine slide down a chute into the machine and a drink is duly released. How many more revolutions does the foreign coin make over the 50 pence piece going down the chute? N.B. A 50 pence piece is a 7 sided polygon ABCDEFG with rounded edges, obtained by replacing AB with arc centred at E and radius EA; replacing BC with arc centred at F radius FB ...etc..

### Rotating Triangle

What happens to the perimeter of triangle ABC as the two smaller circles change size and roll around inside the bigger circle?

# All Tied Up

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A solution based on the one from Richard is given below. I was not able to use Richard's original diagram but hope the one submitted is sufficient:

As the path of the ribbon around the box does not change direction when it reaches each edge, it can be drawn as a single straight line. As the ribbon crosses two faces of the box twice, a simple net of the box can show the path as a single straight line.

I therefore numbered the faces 1-6 and checked the order the ribbon went over them. This led to the diagram submitted, which I used to work out the length of the ribbon via Pythagoras' theorem.

The length of the ribbon is given by:
$$\sqrt{(2 \times 5 + 2\times 10)^2 +(2 \times 5 + 2\times 20)^2}$$

By rearranging the above and substituting W, L and H for thelengths of the sides, the general expression for the length of the ribbon is therefore:

$$2\sqrt{(W+H)^2 + (L+H)^2}$$ or $$2\sqrt{W^2 + L^2 + 2H^2 + 2(WH + LH)}$$

where $H$ is the length of a shortest edge of a box, $W$ and $L$ the lengths of the longer sets of sides.

A little more from Andrei - many thanks:

The condition of the problem is matched only when the red line passes through the same $U$, i.e. the dashed blue passes through the same $A$. So, the length of the ribbon is the distance $A$-$A$.

The blue dashed lines are the extreme positions of the ribbon, and between these positions the ribbon could glide. Each of these extreme positions has one of the two parallel lines reduced to a point.