Cut and Fold Challenge
This month's puzzle, Cut and Fold Challenge, asks students to make the three-dimensional shape pictured on the next page out of a single piece of paper. The paper may only be cut and folded; no gluing or taping is allowed.
The idea for the puzzle came from Martin Gardner's column in the November 1978 issue of Scientific American. Gardner traced the origins of this shape, which has come to be called a hypersquare, to an entrance exam from the school of architecture at the University of Leningrad.
Cut and Fold Challenge is a very difficult puzzle for people who are not strong in spatial visualization skills. Therefore, we strongly urge that the teachers themselves solve the puzzle before assigning it to students. This will have two benefits: it will give teachers a feel for the difficulty of the problem and also provide a three-dimensional model to show students. (The model should be pinned up some place where students can examine it but not handle it.)
We are presenting this puzzle to you as we hope you will present it to your students: that is, without the answer! We want you to struggle with it as the students will; worst of all, you may be unable to solve it. Are you willing to risk a bit and give your students an opportunity to solve it when you cannot? Give yourself the unique opportunity to identify with your students and with their struggling. Such efforts have value: for the stimulation of such mental gymnastics, for the joy that only discovery can bring, and for the appreciation for others who can complete a task sooner or better than we can. We challenge you as teachers to test your own willingness to take such risks.