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Resources tagged with Generalising similar to Jam:

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Jam

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

A game for 2 players

Steel Cables

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Some students have been working out the number of strands needed for different sizes of cable. Can you make sense of their solutions?

Sliding Puzzle

Stage: 1, 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

The aim of the game is to slide the green square from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner in the least number of moves.

Pentanim

Stage: 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

A game for 2 players with similaritlies to NIM. Place one counter on each spot on the games board. Players take it is turns to remove 1 or 2 adjacent counters. The winner picks up the last counter.

Hypotenuse Lattice Points

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

The triangle OMN has vertices on the axes with whole number co-ordinates. How many points with whole number coordinates are there on the hypotenuse MN?

Jam

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

To avoid losing think of another very well known game where the patterns of play are similar.

One, Three, Five, Seven

Stage: 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

A game for 2 players. Set out 16 counters in rows of 1,3,5 and 7. Players take turns to remove any number of counters from a row. The player left with the last counter looses.

Winning Lines

Stage: 2, 3 and 4

An article for teachers and pupils that encourages you to look at the mathematical properties of similar games.

Games Related to Nim

Stage: 1, 2, 3 and 4

This article for teachers describes several games, found on the site, all of which have a related structure that can be used to develop the skills of strategic planning.

Route to Infinity

Stage: 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

Can you describe this route to infinity? Where will the arrows take you next?

Nim-like Games

Stage: 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

A collection of games on the NIM theme

Problem Solving, Using and Applying and Functional Mathematics

Stage: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Challenge Level:

Problem solving is at the heart of the NRICH site. All the problems give learners opportunities to learn, develop or use mathematical concepts and skills. Read here for more information.

Nim

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Start with any number of counters in any number of piles. 2 players take it in turns to remove any number of counters from a single pile. The loser is the player who takes the last counter.

Building Gnomons

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Build gnomons that are related to the Fibonacci sequence and try to explain why this is possible.

Nim-interactive

Stage: 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

Start with any number of counters in any number of piles. 2 players take it in turns to remove any number of counters from a single pile. The winner is the player to take the last counter.

More Magic Potting Sheds

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

The number of plants in Mr McGregor's magic potting shed increases overnight. He'd like to put the same number of plants in each of his gardens, planting one garden each day. How can he do it?

Multiplication Square

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Pick a square within a multiplication square and add the numbers on each diagonal. What do you notice?

Cubes Within Cubes Revisited

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Imagine starting with one yellow cube and covering it all over with a single layer of red cubes, and then covering that cube with a layer of blue cubes. How many red and blue cubes would you need?

Partitioning Revisited

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

We can show that (x + 1)² = x² + 2x + 1 by considering the area of an (x + 1) by (x + 1) square. Show in a similar way that (x + 2)² = x² + 4x + 4

Pentagon

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Find the vertices of a pentagon given the midpoints of its sides.

Polycircles

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Show that for any triangle it is always possible to construct 3 touching circles with centres at the vertices. Is it possible to construct touching circles centred at the vertices of any polygon?

Nim-7

Stage: 1, 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

Can you work out how to win this game of Nim? Does it matter if you go first or second?

Picturing Triangle Numbers

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Triangle numbers can be represented by a triangular array of squares. What do you notice about the sum of identical triangle numbers?

Summing Consecutive Numbers

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Many numbers can be expressed as the sum of two or more consecutive integers. For example, 15=7+8 and 10=1+2+3+4. Can you say which numbers can be expressed in this way?

Number Pyramids

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Try entering different sets of numbers in the number pyramids. How does the total at the top change?

Card Trick 2

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Can you explain how this card trick works?

Equilateral Areas

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

ABC and DEF are equilateral triangles of side 3 and 4 respectively. Construct an equilateral triangle whose area is the sum of the area of ABC and DEF.

Christmas Chocolates

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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

Partially Painted Cube

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Jo made a cube from some smaller cubes, painted some of the faces of the large cube, and then took it apart again. 45 small cubes had no paint on them at all. How many small cubes did Jo use?

Loopy

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Investigate sequences given by $a_n = \frac{1+a_{n-1}}{a_{n-2}}$ for different choices of the first two terms. Make a conjecture about the behaviour of these sequences. Can you prove your conjecture?

Konigsberg Plus

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Euler discussed whether or not it was possible to stroll around Koenigsberg crossing each of its seven bridges exactly once. Experiment with different numbers of islands and bridges.

Lower Bound

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

What would you get if you continued this sequence of fraction sums? 1/2 + 2/1 = 2/3 + 3/2 = 3/4 + 4/3 =

What's Possible?

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Many numbers can be expressed as the difference of two perfect squares. What do you notice about the numbers you CANNOT make?

Multiplication Arithmagons

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Can you find the values at the vertices when you know the values on the edges of these multiplication arithmagons?

Make 37

Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

Four bags contain a large number of 1s, 3s, 5s and 7s. Pick any ten numbers from the bags above so that their total is 37.

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?

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

A little bit of algebra explains this 'magic'. Ask a friend to pick 3 consecutive numbers and to tell you a multiple of 3. Then ask them to add the four numbers and multiply by 67, and to tell you. . . .

AMGM

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Can you use the diagram to prove the AM-GM inequality?

GOT IT Now

Stage: 2 and 3 Challenge Level:

For this challenge, you'll need to play Got It! Can you explain the strategy for winning this game with any target?

Mystic Rose

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Use the animation to help you work out how many lines are needed to draw mystic roses of different sizes.

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

List any 3 numbers. It is always possible to find a subset of adjacent numbers that add up to a multiple of 3. Can you explain why and prove it?

Consecutive Negative Numbers

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Do you notice anything about the solutions when you add and/or subtract consecutive negative numbers?

Shear Magic

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

What are the areas of these triangles? What do you notice? Can you generalise to other "families" of triangles?

Maths Trails

Stage: 2 and 3

The NRICH team are always looking for new ways to engage teachers and pupils in problem solving. Here we explain the thinking behind maths trails.

Tourism

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

If you can copy a network without lifting your pen off the paper and without drawing any line twice, then it is traversable. Decide which of these diagrams are traversable.

Cunning Card Trick

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Delight your friends with this cunning trick! Can you explain how it works?

A Tilted Square

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

The opposite vertices of a square have coordinates (a,b) and (c,d). What are the coordinates of the other vertices?

Pair Products

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Choose four consecutive whole numbers. Multiply the first and last numbers together. Multiply the middle pair together. What do you notice?

Special Sums and Products

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Find some examples of pairs of numbers such that their sum is a factor of their product. eg. 4 + 12 = 16 and 4 × 12 = 48 and 16 is a factor of 48.

Go Forth and Generalise

Stage: 3

Spotting patterns can be an important first step - explaining why it is appropriate to generalise is the next step, and often the most interesting and important.