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'Nine Colours' printed from https://nrich.maths.org/

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You may like to try Creating Cubes before tackling this problem.


In this problem, each of the nine colours must appear on all six faces of the larger cube.

Small cubes can be placed
  • at the corners of the large cube,
  • on the edges of the large cube,
  • in the middle of the faces of the large cube,
  • or at the very centre of the large cube.
How many faces of the small cube will be visible in each of these different positions?

A small cube will need to go in at the very centre of the larger cube.
Where will the other two small cubes of the same colour go?