# Search by Topic

#### Resources tagged with Visualising similar to Square Pegs:

Filter by: Content type:
Stage:
Challenge level:

### Dissect

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

It is possible to dissect any square into smaller squares. What is the minimum number of squares a 13 by 13 square can be dissected into?

### The Spider and the Fly

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A spider is sitting in the middle of one of the smallest walls in a room and a fly is resting beside the window. What is the shortest distance the spider would have to crawl to catch the fly?

### An Unusual Shape

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Can you maximise the area available to a grazing goat?

### Framed

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Seven small rectangular pictures have one inch wide frames. The frames are removed and the pictures are fitted together like a jigsaw to make a rectangle of length 12 inches. Find the dimensions of. . . .

### Intersecting Circles

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Three circles have a maximum of six intersections with each other. What is the maximum number of intersections that a hundred circles could have?

### Concrete Wheel

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A huge wheel is rolling past your window. What do you see?

### Efficient Packing

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

How efficiently can you pack together disks?

### Eight Hidden Squares

##### Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

On the graph there are 28 marked points. These points all mark the vertices (corners) of eight hidden squares. Can you find the eight hidden squares?

### Masterclass Ideas: Visualising

##### Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

A package contains a set of resources designed to develop pupils' mathematical thinking. This package places a particular emphasis on “visualising” and is designed to meet the needs. . . .

### Rolling Coins

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A blue coin rolls round two yellow coins which touch. The coins are the same size. How many revolutions does the blue coin make when it rolls all the way round the yellow coins? Investigate for a. . . .

### The Perforated Cube

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A cube is made from smaller cubes, 5 by 5 by 5, then some of those cubes are removed. Can you make the specified shapes, and what is the most and least number of cubes required ?

### Christmas Chocolates

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

How could Penny, Tom and Matthew work out how many chocolates there are in different sized boxes?

### Marbles in a Box

##### Stage: 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

In a three-dimensional version of noughts and crosses, how many winning lines can you make?

### Cubist Cuts

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A 3x3x3 cube may be reduced to unit cubes in six saw cuts. If after every cut you can rearrange the pieces before cutting straight through, can you do it in fewer?

### Frogs

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

How many moves does it take to swap over some red and blue frogs? Do you have a method?

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Can you mark 4 points on a flat surface so that there are only two different distances between them?

### Like a Circle in a Spiral

##### Stage: 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

A cheap and simple toy with lots of mathematics. Can you interpret the images that are produced? Can you predict the pattern that will be produced using different wheels?

### Baravelle

##### Stage: 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

What can you see? What do you notice? What questions can you ask?

### Isosceles Triangles

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Draw some isosceles triangles with an area of $9$cm$^2$ and a vertex at (20,20). If all the vertices must have whole number coordinates, how many is it possible to draw?

### Muggles Magic

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

You can move the 4 pieces of the jigsaw and fit them into both outlines. Explain what has happened to the missing one unit of area.

### Bands and Bridges: Bringing Topology Back

##### Stage: 2 and 3

Lyndon Baker describes how the Mobius strip and Euler's law can introduce pupils to the idea of topology.

### Take Ten

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Is it possible to remove ten unit cubes from a 3 by 3 by 3 cube made from 27 unit cubes so that the surface area of the remaining solid is the same as the surface area of the original 3 by 3 by 3. . . .

### Tetra Square

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

ABCD is a regular tetrahedron and the points P, Q, R and S are the midpoints of the edges AB, BD, CD and CA. Prove that PQRS is a square.

### Tied Up

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

In a right angled triangular field, three animals are tethered to posts at the midpoint of each side. Each rope is just long enough to allow the animal to reach two adjacent vertices. Only one animal. . . .

### Trice

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

ABCDEFGH is a 3 by 3 by 3 cube. Point P is 1/3 along AB (that is AP : PB = 1 : 2), point Q is 1/3 along GH and point R is 1/3 along ED. What is the area of the triangle PQR?

### Something in Common

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A square of area 3 square units cannot be drawn on a 2D grid so that each of its vertices have integer coordinates, but can it be drawn on a 3D grid? Investigate squares that can be drawn.

### Rolling Around

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A circle rolls around the outside edge of a square so that its circumference always touches the edge of the square. Can you describe the locus of the centre of the circle?

### Sea Defences

##### Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

These are pictures of the sea defences at New Brighton. Can you work out what a basic shape might be in both images of the sea wall and work out a way they might fit together?

### Khun Phaen Escapes to Freedom

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Slide the pieces to move Khun Phaen past all the guards into the position on the right from which he can escape to freedom.

### Zooming in on the Squares

##### Stage: 2 and 3

Start with a large square, join the midpoints of its sides, you'll see four right angled triangles. Remove these triangles, a second square is left. Repeat the operation. What happens?

### Tilting Triangles

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A right-angled isosceles triangle is rotated about the centre point of a square. What can you say about the area of the part of the square covered by the triangle as it rotates?

### Efficient Cutting

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Use a single sheet of A4 paper and make a cylinder having the greatest possible volume. The cylinder must be closed off by a circle at each end.

### All in the Mind

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Imagine you are suspending a cube from one vertex (corner) and allowing it to hang freely. Now imagine you are lowering it into water until it is exactly half submerged. What shape does the surface. . . .

### Diagonal Dodge

##### Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

A game for 2 players. Can be played online. One player has 1 red counter, the other has 4 blue. The red counter needs to reach the other side, and the blue needs to trap the red.

### Squares in Rectangles

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A 2 by 3 rectangle contains 8 squares and a 3 by 4 rectangle contains 20 squares. What size rectangle(s) contain(s) exactly 100 squares? Can you find them all?

### Just Opposite

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A and C are the opposite vertices of a square ABCD, and have coordinates (a,b) and (c,d), respectively. What are the coordinates of the vertices B and D? What is the area of the square?

### 3D Stacks

##### Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

Can you find a way of representing these arrangements of balls?

### Star Gazing

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Find the ratio of the outer shaded area to the inner area for a six pointed star and an eight pointed star.

### Drilling Many Cubes

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A useful visualising exercise which offers opportunities for discussion and generalising, and which could be used for thinking about the formulae needed for generating the results on a spreadsheet.

### Screwed-up

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A cylindrical helix is just a spiral on a cylinder, like an ordinary spring or the thread on a bolt. If I turn a left-handed helix over (top to bottom) does it become a right handed helix?

### Tic Tac Toe

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

In the game of Noughts and Crosses there are 8 distinct winning lines. How many distinct winning lines are there in a game played on a 3 by 3 by 3 board, with 27 cells?

### Auditorium Steps

##### Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

What is the shape of wrapping paper that you would need to completely wrap this model?

### Chess

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

What would be the smallest number of moves needed to move a Knight from a chess set from one corner to the opposite corner of a 99 by 99 square board?

### Corridors

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A 10x10x10 cube is made from 27 2x2 cubes with corridors between them. Find the shortest route from one corner to the opposite corner.

### Contact

##### Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A circular plate rolls in contact with the sides of a rectangular tray. How much of its circumference comes into contact with the sides of the tray when it rolls around one circuit?

### On the Edge

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Here are four tiles. They can be arranged in a 2 by 2 square so that this large square has a green edge. If the tiles are moved around, we can make a 2 by 2 square with a blue edge... Now try. . . .

### Fence It

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

If you have only 40 metres of fencing available, what is the maximum area of land you can fence off?

### Cutting a Cube

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A half-cube is cut into two pieces by a plane through the long diagonal and at right angles to it. Can you draw a net of these pieces? Are they identical?

### Pattern Power

##### Stage: 1, 2 and 3

Mathematics is the study of patterns. Studying pattern is an opportunity to observe, hypothesise, experiment, discover and create.

### Coloured Edges

##### Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

The whole set of tiles is used to make a square. This has a green and blue border. There are no green or blue tiles anywhere in the square except on this border. How many tiles are there in the set?