Pentominoes - Big Pentominoes and Small!
Be sure to read all to the end of this post, so you can find out how to win a free month's subscription at Quote Puzzler!
Here are some interesting pieces of trivia about Pentominoes (or Pentominos, depending on how you like to spell it!)
First, in case you didn't know what a Pentomino is, it's a shape made up of five square tiles all touching at least one another tile on a complete side. There are twelve possible Pentomino shapes, not counting rotations and flips. Here they are (taken from Tile Puzzler).
So here's your trivia for the day. Did you know that if you take a checkboard, and cover ANY 2x2 square region on the board, the resulting shape can be completely covered by the 12 Pentomino shapes. No matter where the 2x2 region is covered!
Here's another. Did you know that there is only one way to make a 3x20 rectangle using all the Pentomino shapes?
Okay, and now for the big one...
Take any Pentomino shape, and blow it up to three times its normal size. Now, using nine of the remaining 11 shapes, fill in the BIG Pentomino. Not sure what I mean by that? Well, Okay, I'll show you an example. But wait...before I show you an example, maybe you'd like to try to solve one:
The Big T
Okay? If you want to see the solution to this puzzle, scroll down to the bottom of this post.
Now, one of the nice features about the Tile Puzzler site is that it doesn't just allow you to solve puzzles, it also lets you create them! So I'm throwing down a challenge...can you create a Pento Puzzler that uses nine different shapes, and those nine shapes form a 3x magnified version of one of the tiles you didn't use?
Currently, The Big T is the only one of these puzzles on the site. I'd like to see all twelve of these puzzles on the site, so I challenge you...can you create the others?
If you create one of these puzzles, you can title it "The Big ?", where ? is the letter name of the puzzle piece. If you don't know the names of the puzzle pieces, this should help you out (borrowed from the University of Texas at Austin Math Department website):
Okay? All that's left now is to offer you an incentive. Here it is: if you can successfully create one of the "BIG" puzzles which has not already been added to the site, you will receive one month's free subscription to the Quote Puzzler Daily Word Game Site (Limit one incentive per person!) Note: please first create a free membership account at Tile Puzzler, and be sure you are logged in when you create the puzzle, that way I can verify your identity, and give you your prize!
Which Puzzles Have Been Done?
The Big T
The Big I (created by yoi55)
Which Puzzles Haven't Been Done?
The Big U
The Big V
The Big W
The Big X
The Big Y
The Big Z
The Big F
The Big L
The Big P
The Big N
And finally, here's THE BIG T, which is already on the site!
Here are some interesting pieces of trivia about Pentominoes (or Pentominos, depending on how you like to spell it!)
First, in case you didn't know what a Pentomino is, it's a shape made up of five square tiles all touching at least one another tile on a complete side. There are twelve possible Pentomino shapes, not counting rotations and flips. Here they are (taken from Tile Puzzler).
So here's your trivia for the day. Did you know that if you take a checkboard, and cover ANY 2x2 square region on the board, the resulting shape can be completely covered by the 12 Pentomino shapes. No matter where the 2x2 region is covered!
Here's another. Did you know that there is only one way to make a 3x20 rectangle using all the Pentomino shapes?
Okay, and now for the big one...
Take any Pentomino shape, and blow it up to three times its normal size. Now, using nine of the remaining 11 shapes, fill in the BIG Pentomino. Not sure what I mean by that? Well, Okay, I'll show you an example. But wait...before I show you an example, maybe you'd like to try to solve one:
The Big T
Okay? If you want to see the solution to this puzzle, scroll down to the bottom of this post.
Now, one of the nice features about the Tile Puzzler site is that it doesn't just allow you to solve puzzles, it also lets you create them! So I'm throwing down a challenge...can you create a Pento Puzzler that uses nine different shapes, and those nine shapes form a 3x magnified version of one of the tiles you didn't use?
Currently, The Big T is the only one of these puzzles on the site. I'd like to see all twelve of these puzzles on the site, so I challenge you...can you create the others?
If you create one of these puzzles, you can title it "The Big ?", where ? is the letter name of the puzzle piece. If you don't know the names of the puzzle pieces, this should help you out (borrowed from the University of Texas at Austin Math Department website):
Okay? All that's left now is to offer you an incentive. Here it is: if you can successfully create one of the "BIG" puzzles which has not already been added to the site, you will receive one month's free subscription to the Quote Puzzler Daily Word Game Site (Limit one incentive per person!) Note: please first create a free membership account at Tile Puzzler, and be sure you are logged in when you create the puzzle, that way I can verify your identity, and give you your prize!
Which Puzzles Have Been Done?
The Big T
The Big I (created by yoi55)
Which Puzzles Haven't Been Done?
The Big U
The Big V
The Big W
The Big X
The Big Y
The Big Z
The Big F
The Big L
The Big P
The Big N
And finally, here's THE BIG T, which is already on the site!
