Geometric Toy

Wendy sent us another fun fun package for C’s birthday. Among C’s birthday gifts was this geomatric-tile toy. It was an immediate hit.

Ruby found all four ways to make hexagons with the pieces (well… three ways, since “just use the yellow hexagon piece” didn’t really require much effort on her part). And I went for the slightly more challenging dodecagons. I just wish the pieces were a bit more precisely cut.

I liked the solution in the top-left, because while it is a perfect dodecagon (assuming perfect pieces and perfect assembly, blah-blah-math-disclaimer), the center hole could not be filled with the pieces given.

Bonus: Anyone want to figure out the area of the center hole, in terms of the other pieces? For example, an incorrect answer would be “6b + 2w”, which means 6 blue pieces and 2 white pieces.

You can also make one with two yellow pieces. (I wouldn’t have thought to try until I worked out the problem posed above — it just didn’t seem like it would fit.)

Didn’t have enough pieces, unfortunately.

According to Ruby, this was a kid’s iPod.