3/22/04

The Puzzle Project started as an offshoot of the Pipe Project. Five weeks ago, my friend Sam, who has a woodshop, was helping me make little wooden houses for a Pipe Project construction project.

In the process, we generated quite a few little wooden triangles when we cut the wood houses to create a roof. I figured that these might be used for something, so I took them home with me along with the houses. There was some potential here for making something interesting, or so I thought.

I got some nontoxic markers and colored the triangles red/blue and green/yellow.

Then I played around putting the triangles into patterns.

Using PowerPoint, I generated several patterns for the students to construct using the triangles.

Some of the students have found these puzzles to be easy to put together, others have found them to be challenging.

My friend Sam came up with the idea of creating puzzles out of pieces of scrap wood. Putting the pieces together requires an attention to detail that is far more challenging than a typical jig saw puzzle. You need to attend to details such as the direction of the wood grain as well as whether the edge of the piece is rough or smooth so that you can tell whether all of the pieces are facing up or down.

Here is a simple example. Even though there are only four pieces, this puzzle takes some effort to complete.

Here is the result.

Sam had another idea of using some PVC pipe to make a puzzle. I came up the idea of creating a stand so that the pipe pieces could be stacked without falling apart.

Assembling this puzzle is more challenging than it looks. It is possible to put the pieces together so that they all fit, but still have one piece left over. The trick to getting it right is to use the printing on the side of the pipe as a guide.

4/2/04

I took some pictures today of students solving the wood puzzles. Here is the progress that one student made in putting together a block of wood that had been cut both horizontally and vertically:

This puzzle is made out of a piece of firewood:

6/3/04

I made two really challenging puzzles from two pieces of wood that were the same size, and then I mixed them together. One had 26 pieces, and the other had 28 pieces. I thought that it would be nice to offer a really challenging puzzle and promised the students who were able to put them together that they would earn $1.00 of Study Club money. All of the other puzzles are worth .02 to .10 cents.

Two students so far have been able to put the puzzles together. The first student was able to accomplish the task in about 3 hours. The second student took a bit longer.