During the pandemic, many institutions, including K-State, used plexiglass to separate people to slow the spread of COVID. We are turning all of this plastic into puzzles to bring people together. Previously, we created an activity based on dissections for our 2018 Summer Math Camp.
Superposition of a pair of periodic translation tessellations of the plane is a well-known way to construct dissection puzzles. Another way is to arrange that parts of the two figures can tile a strip. Such a tiling is called a frieze pattern. When the two frieze patterns are overlapped one obtains a dissection puzzle. Gavin Theobald refined this idea to make many beautiful dissection puzzles. More details about his work are provided below. The third method is to just overlap a pair of shapes, cut out the overlap region and repeat.
We used the overlapping tessellation idea to generate a logo for the Indigenous Math Circles. The Indigenous Math Circles
project came to a halt during the pandemic.
The following figure explains how the puzzle was made.
Now that you have found our website, look around and see what our program is about. Feel free to ask if there is anything we can do for you, or if you wish to know more.
Here is a more complicated dissection puzzle:
Here is a video of its solution:
Here is a video of a second puzzle with solution:
Here is a video of a third puzzle with solution:
A wonderful description of methods to make dissection puzzles may be found at:
Gavin Theobald’s Dissection Page,
The puzzle in the video above is from this site as is are the puzzles below.
More puzzles to come. More puzzle making description to come.
Some of the advanced math related to these puzzles.
Notes by Danny Calegari on scissors congruence, based on a course by Daniil Rudenko:
Scissors paper