Pipes and pathways

Resources

Puzzling pipes (worksheet)

Puzzling pipes (PowerPoint)

Millionaire Island (worksheet)

Millionaire Island (PowerPoint)

Teaching notes

When solving these two puzzles, students tend to enjoy experimenting with different approaches. You could either distribute the worksheets to students, or show the PowerPoint files on an interactive whiteboard which can be drawn on in front of the group, involving everyone in the discussion. A good exercise in speaking and listening is to ask one student to direct another to draw the solution – exact instructions must be given!

For Puzzling pipes, you may wish to point out to students that most gas pipes are made up of straight lines and elbows (90° angles), so solutions containing curves are unrealistic. There is also some specialist vocabulary that might be new to students (eg ‘clause’ and ‘title deed’).

Solutions

Puzzling pipes

One solution is:

Millionaire Island

One solution is:

Extension

Puzzling pipes

• If alternative solutions are found, discuss how you could judge which is the best (eg shortest length of pipes used, or fewest corners).
• Ask students to put themselves in the role of the client/contractor to either describe what is required or how they plan to proceed. They could write a report outlining the plans, or a letter to persuade the client that they should be offered the contract.

Millionaire Island

• Ask students to design their own Millionaire Island with a different number of houses.
• Students could use the idea of Millionaire Island as a starting point for a written task, eg planning a party to take place on the island, or producing a newspaper article about the building of the luxury homes.