Resources tagged with: Visualising

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Broad Topics > Thinking Mathematically > Visualising

Playground Snapshot

Age 7 to 14 Challenge Level:

The image in this problem is part of a piece of equipment found in the playground of a school. How would you describe it to someone over the phone?

Weighty Problem

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

The diagram shows a very heavy kitchen cabinet. It cannot be lifted but it can be pivoted around a corner. The task is to move it, without sliding, in a series of turns about the corners so that it. . . .

Cutting a Cube

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

A half-cube is cut into two pieces by a plane through the long diagonal and at right angles to it. Can you draw a net of these pieces? Are they identical?

Rolling Around

Age 11 to 14 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?

LOGO Challenge - Circles as Animals

Age 11 to 16 Challenge Level:

See if you can anticipate successive 'generations' of the two animals shown here.

An Unusual Shape

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Can you maximise the area available to a grazing goat?

The Old Goats

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

A rectangular field has two posts with a ring on top of each post. There are two quarrelsome goats and plenty of ropes which you can tie to their collars. How can you secure them so they can't. . . .

Like a Circle in a Spiral

Age 7 to 16 Challenge Level:

A cheap and simple toy with lots of mathematics. Can you interpret the images that are produced? Can you predict the pattern that will be produced using different wheels?

Convex Polygons

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Show that among the interior angles of a convex polygon there cannot be more than three acute angles.

Tessellating Hexagons

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Which hexagons tessellate?

Polygon Pictures

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Can you work out how these polygon pictures were drawn, and use that to figure out their angles?

Trice

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

ABCDEFGH is a 3 by 3 by 3 cube. Point P is 1/3 along AB (that is AP : PB = 1 : 2), point Q is 1/3 along GH and point R is 1/3 along ED. What is the area of the triangle PQR?

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Four rods, two of length a and two of length b, are linked to form a kite. The linkage is moveable so that the angles change. What is the maximum area of the kite?

Polygon Rings

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Join pentagons together edge to edge. Will they form a ring?

Efficient Cutting

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Use a single sheet of A4 paper and make a cylinder having the greatest possible volume. The cylinder must be closed off by a circle at each end.

Cube Paths

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Given a 2 by 2 by 2 skeletal cube with one route `down' the cube. How many routes are there from A to B?

All in the Mind

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Imagine you are suspending a cube from one vertex and allowing it to hang freely. What shape does the surface of the water make around the cube?

The Triangle Game

Age 11 to 16 Challenge Level:

Can you discover whether this is a fair game?

Counting Triangles

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Triangles are formed by joining the vertices of a skeletal cube. How many different types of triangle are there? How many triangles altogether?

Getting an Angle

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

How can you make an angle of 60 degrees by folding a sheet of paper twice?

Tourism

Age 11 to 14 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.

Dotty Triangles

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Imagine an infinitely large sheet of square dotty paper on which you can draw triangles of any size you wish (providing each vertex is on a dot). What areas is it/is it not possible to draw?

Marbles in a Box

Age 11 to 16 Challenge Level:

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

Triangular Tantaliser

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Draw all the possible distinct triangles on a 4 x 4 dotty grid. Convince me that you have all possible triangles.

On the Edge

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

If you move the tiles around, can you make squares with different coloured edges?

Zooming in on the Squares

Age 7 to 14

Start with a large square, join the midpoints of its sides, you'll see four right angled triangles. Remove these triangles, a second square is left. Repeat the operation. What happens?

Christmas Boxes

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Find all the ways to cut out a 'net' of six squares that can be folded into a cube.

Baravelle

Age 7 to 16 Challenge Level:

What can you see? What do you notice? What questions can you ask?

Framed

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Seven small rectangular pictures have one inch wide frames. The frames are removed and the pictures are fitted together like a jigsaw to make a rectangle of length 12 inches. Find the dimensions of. . . .

Tetra Square

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

ABCD is a regular tetrahedron and the points P, Q, R and S are the midpoints of the edges AB, BD, CD and CA. Prove that PQRS is a square.

Eight Hidden Squares

Age 7 to 14 Challenge Level:

On the graph there are 28 marked points. These points all mark the vertices (corners) of eight hidden squares. Can you find the eight hidden squares?

Soma - So Good

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Can you mentally fit the 7 SOMA pieces together to make a cube? Can you do it in more than one way?

Drilling Many Cubes

Age 7 to 14 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.

Chess

Age 11 to 14 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?

Christmas Chocolates

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

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

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Can you mark 4 points on a flat surface so that there are only two different distances between them?

Rati-o

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Points P, Q, R and S each divide the sides AB, BC, CD and DA respectively in the ratio of 2 : 1. Join the points. What is the area of the parallelogram PQRS in relation to the original rectangle?

Coloured Edges

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

The whole set of tiles is used to make a square. This has a green and blue border. There are no green or blue tiles anywhere in the square except on this border. How many tiles are there in the set?

Isosceles Triangles

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Draw some isosceles triangles with an area of $9$cm$^2$ and a vertex at (20,20). If all the vertices must have whole number coordinates, how many is it possible to draw?

Part the Polygons

Age 7 to 11 Short Challenge Level:

Draw three straight lines to separate these shapes into four groups - each group must contain one of each shape.

Cubes Within Cubes Revisited

Age 11 to 14 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?

Ten Hidden Squares

Age 7 to 14 Challenge Level:

These points all mark the vertices (corners) of ten hidden squares. Can you find the 10 hidden squares?

Overlapping Again

Age 7 to 11 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.

Dissect

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

What is the minimum number of squares a 13 by 13 square can be dissected into?

Take Ten

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Is it possible to remove ten unit cubes from a 3 by 3 by 3 cube so that the surface area of the remaining solid is the same as the surface area of the original?

Thinking Through, and By, Visualising

Age 7 to 16

This article is based on some of the ideas that emerged during the production of a book which takes visualising as its focus. We began to identify problems which helped us to take a structured view. . . .

Tic Tac Toe

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

In the game of Noughts and Crosses there are 8 distinct winning lines. How many distinct winning lines are there in a game played on a 3 by 3 by 3 board, with 27 cells?

Concrete Wheel

Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

A huge wheel is rolling past your window. What do you see?

Auditorium Steps

Age 7 to 14 Challenge Level:

What is the shape of wrapping paper that you would need to completely wrap this model?

Cubic Conundrum

Age 7 to 16 Challenge Level:

Which of the following cubes can be made from these nets?