Visualising

Visualising is part of our Thinking Mathematically collection.

Pick's Theorem

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Polygons drawn on square dotty paper have dots on their perimeter (p) and often internal (i) ones as well. Find a relationship between p, i and the area of the polygons.

Attractive Tablecloths

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Charlie likes tablecloths that use as many colours as possible, but insists that his tablecloths have some symmetry. Can you work out how many colours he needs for different tablecloth designs?

Painted Cube

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Imagine a large cube made from small red cubes being dropped into a pot of yellow paint. How many of the small cubes will have yellow paint on their faces?

Square It

Stage: 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

Players take it in turns to choose a dot on the grid. The winner is the first to have four dots that can be joined to form a square.

Route to Infinity

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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

Diamond Collector

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Collect as many diamonds as you can by drawing three straight lines.

Cops and Robbers

Stage: 2, 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

Can you find a reliable strategy for choosing coordinates that will locate the robber in the minimum number of guesses?

Diminishing Returns

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

In this problem, we have created a pattern from smaller and smaller squares. If we carried on the pattern forever, what proportion of the image would be coloured blue?

Marbles in a Box

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

How many winning lines can you make in a three-dimensional version of noughts and crosses?

Nine Colours

Stage: 3 and 4 Challenge Level:

Can you use small coloured cubes to make a 3 by 3 by 3 cube so that each face of the bigger cube contains one of each colour?

Vector Journeys

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Charlie likes to go for walks around a square park, while Alison likes to cut across diagonally. Can you find relationships between the vectors they walk along?

Building Tetrahedra

Stage: 4 Challenge Level:

Can you make a tetrahedron whose faces all have the same perimeter?

Frogs

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

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

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?

ACE, TWO, THREE...

Stage: 3 Challenge Level:

Can you picture how to order the cards to reproduce Charlie's card trick for yourself?

Cubic Net

Stage: 4 and 5 Challenge Level:

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!