Waiting for blast off

10 space travellers are waiting to board their spaceships. There are two rows of seats in the waiting room. Using the rules, where are they all sitting? Can you find all the possible ways?

Age

7 to 11

Challenge level

Exploring and noticing Working systematically Conjecturing and generalising Visualising and representing Reasoning, convincing and proving

Being curious Being resourceful Being resilient Being collaborative

Problem

10 space travellers are waiting to board their spaceships.

There are two rows of seats in the waiting room - a row of 10 red chairs facing a row of 10 blue chairs.

6 people are sitting in pairs. The other 4 are sitting alone.

Between the singles or pairs there are always one or two spare seats.

Nobody is sitting directly opposite anyone else.

Where are they all sitting?