Problems
Building with Cubes
Stage: 1 Challenge Level: 
Try to picture these buildings of cubes in your head. Can you make them to check whether you had imagined them correctly?
Overlaps
Stage: 1 Challenge Level:
What does the overlap of these two shapes look like? Try picturing it in your head and then use the interactivity to test your prediction.
Start Cube Drilling
Stage: 1 Challenge Level:
Imagine a 3 by 3 by 3 cube. If you and a friend drill holes in some of the small cubes in the ways described, how many will have holes drilled through them?
Cube Drilling
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
Imagine a 4 by 4 by 4 cube. If you and a friend drill holes in some of the small cubes in the ways described, how many will not have holes drilled through them?
Face Painting
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
Imagine a 3 by 3 by 3 cube made of 9 small cubes. Each face of the large cube is painted a different colour. How many small cubes will have two painted faces? Where are they?
More Building with Cubes
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
Here are more buildings to picture in your mind's eye. Watch out - they become quite complicated!
Picture a Pyramid ...
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
Imagine a pyramid which is built in square layers of small cubes. If we number the cubes from the top, starting with 1, can you picture which cubes are directly below this first cube?
Flip
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
Can you picture where this letter "F" will be on the grid if you flip it in these different ways?
Overlapping Again
Stage: 2 Challenge Level:
What shape is the overlap when you slide one of these shapes half way across another? Can you picture it in your head? Use the interactivity to check your visualisation.
There and Back Again
Stage: 3 Challenge Level:
Bilbo goes on an adventure, before arriving back home. Using the information given about his journey, can you work out where Bilbo lives?
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.
Roundabout
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?
Spotting the Loophole
Stage: 4 Challenge Level:
A visualisation problem in which you search for vectors which sum to zero from a jumble of arrows. Will your eyes be quicker than algebra?
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 ?
Making Tracks
Stage: 4 Challenge Level:
A bicycle passes along a path and leaves some tracks. Is it possible to say which track was made by the front wheel and which by the back wheel?
One Out One Under
Stage: 4 Challenge Level:
Imagine a stack of numbered cards with one on top. Discard the top, put the next card to the bottom and repeat continuously. Can you predict the last card?
Sextet
Stage: 5 Challenge Level:
Investigate x to the power n plus 1 over x to the power n when x plus 1 over x equals 1.
Interpenetrating Solids
Stage: 5 Challenge Level:
This problem provides training in visualisation and representation of 3D shapes. You will need to imagine rotating cubes, squashing cubes and even superimposing cubes!
Solving the Net
Stage: 5 Challenge Level:
Takes you through the systematic way in which you can begin to solve a mixed up Cubic Net. How close will you come to a solution?
Cheese Cutting
Stage: 5 Challenge Level:
In this problem we see how many pieces we can cut a cube of cheese into using a limited number of slices. How many pieces will you be able to make?
Elsewhere...
Featured Solutions
Two and Four Dimensional Numbers
Two by two matrices model the complex numbers and also the quaternion number system.
Articles & Games
Shaping the Universe I - Planet Earth
This article explores ths history of theories about the shape of our planet. It is the first in a series of articles looking at the significance of geometric shapes in the history of astronomy.
Shaping the Universe II - the Solar System
The second in a series of articles on visualising and modelling shapes in the history of astronomy.
Cubic Net
This is an interactive net of a Rubik's cube. Twists of the 3D cube become mixes of the squares on the 2D net. Have a play and see how many scrambles you can undo!
Shaping the Universe III - to Infinity and Beyond
The third installment in our series on the shape of astronomical systems, this article explores galaxies and the universe beyond our solar system.
