# Resources tagged with: Visualising

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### There are 179 results

Broad Topics > Thinking Mathematically > Visualising

### Just Rolling Round

##### Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

P is a point on the circumference of a circle radius r which rolls, without slipping, inside a circle of radius 2r. What is the locus of P?

### Sea Defences

##### Age 7 to 14 Challenge Level:

These are pictures of the sea defences at New Brighton. Can you work out what a basic shape might be in both images of the sea wall and work out a way they might fit together?

### The Triangle Game

##### Age 11 to 16 Challenge Level:

Can you discover whether this is a fair game?

### Sliding Puzzle

##### Age 11 to 16 Challenge Level:

The aim of the game is to slide the green square from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner in the least number of moves.

### Khun Phaen Escapes to Freedom

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Slide the pieces to move Khun Phaen past all the guards into the position on the right from which he can escape to freedom.

### Changing Places

##### Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

Place a red counter in the top left corner of a 4x4 array, which is covered by 14 other smaller counters, leaving a gap in the bottom right hand corner (HOME). What is the smallest number of moves. . . .

### Hidden Rectangles

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Rectangles are considered different if they vary in size or have different locations. How many different rectangles can be drawn on a chessboard?

### One Out One Under

##### Age 14 to 16 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?

### Jam

##### Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

To avoid losing think of another very well known game where the patterns of play are similar.

### Wari

##### Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

This is a simple version of an ancient game played all over the world. It is also called Mancala. What tactics will increase your chances of winning?

### Jam

##### Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

A game for 2 players

### Rolling Triangle

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

The triangle ABC is equilateral. The arc AB has centre C, the arc BC has centre A and the arc CA has centre B. Explain how and why this shape can roll along between two parallel tracks.

### Square It

##### Age 11 to 16 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.

### 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?

### 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?

### Triangles Within Pentagons

##### Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

Show that all pentagonal numbers are one third of a triangular number.

### Triangles Within Triangles

##### Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

Can you find a rule which connects consecutive triangular numbers?

### Shear Magic

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Explore the area of families of parallelograms and triangles. Can you find rules to work out the areas?

### Seega

##### Age 5 to 18

An ancient game for two from Egypt. You'll need twelve distinctive 'stones' each to play. You could chalk out the board on the ground - do ask permission first.

### 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?

### 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?

### Sprouts

##### Age 7 to 18 Challenge Level:

A game for 2 people. Take turns joining two dots, until your opponent is unable to move.

### 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. . . .

### An Unusual Shape

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Can you maximise the area available to a grazing goat?

##### 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?

### Fermat's Poser

##### Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

Find the point whose sum of distances from the vertices (corners) of a given triangle is a minimum.

### Pattern Power

##### Age 5 to 14

Mathematics is the study of patterns. Studying pattern is an opportunity to observe, hypothesise, experiment, discover and create.

### 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?

### Reflecting Squarely

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

In how many ways can you fit all three pieces together to make shapes with line symmetry?

### Picturing Triangular Numbers

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Triangular numbers can be represented by a triangular array of squares. What do you notice about the sum of identical triangle numbers?

### Tetrahedra Tester

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

An irregular tetrahedron is composed of four different triangles. Can such a tetrahedron be constructed where the side lengths are 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 units of length?

### Nine Colours

##### Age 11 to 16 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?

### On the Edge

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

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

### Inside Out

##### Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

There are 27 small cubes in a 3 x 3 x 3 cube, 54 faces being visible at any one time. Is it possible to reorganise these cubes so that by dipping the large cube into a pot of paint three times you. . . .

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

How many different symmetrical shapes can you make by shading triangles or squares?

### Icosian Game

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

This problem is about investigating whether it is possible to start at one vertex of a platonic solid and visit every other vertex once only returning to the vertex you started at.

### 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?

### Bands and Bridges: Bringing Topology Back

##### Age 7 to 14

Lyndon Baker describes how the Mobius strip and Euler's law can introduce pupils to the idea of topology.

### Something in Common

##### Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

A square of area 3 square units cannot be drawn on a 2D grid so that each of its vertices have integer coordinates, but can it be drawn on a 3D grid? Investigate squares that can be drawn.

### Tilting Triangles

##### Age 14 to 16 Challenge Level:

A right-angled isosceles triangle is rotated about the centre point of a square. What can you say about the area of the part of the square covered by the triangle as it rotates?

### 3D Treasure Hunt

##### Age 14 to 18 Challenge Level:

Some treasure has been hidden in a three-dimensional grid! Can you work out a strategy to find it as efficiently as possible?

### The Development of Spatial and Geometric Thinking: 5 to 18

##### Age 5 to 16

This is the first article in a series which aim to provide some insight into the way spatial thinking develops in children, and draw on a range of reported research. The focus of this article is the. . . .

### Cuboids

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

Can you find a cuboid that has a surface area of exactly 100 square units. Is there more than one? Can you find them all?

### 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.

### Concrete Wheel

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

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

### LOGO Challenge - Triangles-squares-stars

##### Age 11 to 16 Challenge Level:

Can you recreate these designs? What are the basic units? What movement is required between each unit? Some elegant use of procedures will help - variables not essential.

### Clocking Off

##### Age 7 to 16 Challenge Level:

I found these clocks in the Arts Centre at the University of Warwick intriguing - do they really need four clocks and what times would be ambiguous with only two or three of them?

### 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?

### Cogs

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

A and B are two interlocking cogwheels having p teeth and q teeth respectively. One tooth on B is painted red. Find the values of p and q for which the red tooth on B contacts every gap on the. . . .

### Screwed-up

##### Age 11 to 14 Challenge Level:

A cylindrical helix is just a spiral on a cylinder, like an ordinary spring or the thread on a bolt. If I turn a left-handed helix over (top to bottom) does it become a right handed helix?