36 Cube challenges puzzlers of all ages.

Greetings everyone, and happy puzzling! I have two things to focus on in this message. First, I want to tell you about the great new puzzle we have just launched called the 36 Cube. Also, I will report on the results of our Puzzle Corner survey from last newsletter.

We are so excited about our newest puzzle! 36 Cube is colorful, compelling, and fun, and I believe it has all the ingredients that make a great puzzle. It could be ThinkFun's next best puzzle after Rush Hour! Rather than try to explain it to you in words, I invite you to visit our website and take a look for yourself. You can play an online version, it’s really fun.

We are gearing up for an exciting contest to challenge puzzlers of all ages to try their hand at solving the 36 Cube and to promote the importance of using puzzles in classrooms. To participate, puzzle players must 1) adopt a school that they support and 2) send us a picture of their solved cube. The first 36 puzzlers to submit a photo of their correctly solved puzzle will receive a free ThinkFun Game Club Classroom Set to give to the school of their choice. This innovative contest format helps support our mission to spread the word about why puzzles are such great learning tools for young people. If this becomes big news, you have heard it first!

If you know any parent geniuses or very smart puzzle-loving students, please spread the word. We are selling the 36 Cube puzzle on our website, and you can also buy it at Barnes and Noble.

Thank you also to all who responded to the last issue's puzzle survey. It turns out that everyone who responded uses puzzles in a big way in their classrooms. This is great news, but I don’t think this accurately reflects schools in general. (News flash! Every classroom is filled with puzzles!)

Everyone will be interested to read the descriptions that teachers posted of how they use puzzles. This is what we were really hoping for — stories that help to teach and inspire. We have collected the best ones and posted them on our website. Enjoy!

Have you ever played with a Rubik's cube? How did it make you feel? I know it was frustrating to me as a child, and I was always amazed when I saw other people who could solve it. The best I could do was to solve one face of the cube, but as soon as I moved to another, my solved face would get mixed up, and I wasn’t able to get any further.

	Tanya talking puzzles with Martin Gardner.

It wasn't until I became an adult that I learned how to solve the cube. I bought a second-hand book written by a 13 year old and learned that there is a system that must be followed in order to solve it. I learned that you can not solve the cube face by face, but rather you must analyze its mechanism and learn what different rotations actually do. I understand the puzzle much better now. I have an algorithm to solve it, and I solve it layer by layer not face by face.

When I was teaching, I would keep the cube on my desk to spark curiosity and generate conversation, and then I would amaze my students by solving it! I would tell them my story and explain that I didn’t simply figure it out, but rather I learned how to solve it. Most importantly, sharing my experience gave me the opportunity to teach my students about problem solving.

How is this problem solving? In How to Solve It, one of the most influential books on problem solving, George Polya describes the following steps to solving a mathematical problem:

1. Understand the problem
2. Devise a plan
3. Carry out the plan
4. Look back and understand what you've done.

The steps I took in learning to solve the cube follow this model exactly. I had to first understand how the cube maneuvered, come up with a plan on how to solve it (which meant learning the algorithms a 13 year old had figured out), carefully carry out this plan, and I am always looking back to see if I can do it faster and if there are better algorithms. It's still not easy, and I have never accomplished it in 17 seconds, but my 2.5 minute solve is pretty impressive!

This is the beauty of including these types of brainteaser puzzles in your classroom. They are engaging for children and make them think, and they provide a natural opportunity to talk about problem solving. More likely than not, these puzzles will cause frustration, but if one perseveres, one will succeed. This is a great lesson in itself.

In his book Mathematical Carnival, famed recreational mathematician Martin Gardner writes, "A teacher of mathematics, no matter how much he loves his subject and how strong his desire to communicate, is perpetually faced with an overwhelming difficulty: How can he keep his students awake? ... The best way, it has always seemed to me, to make mathematics interesting to students ... is to approach it in a spirit of play."

I believe Martin was absolutely correct, and I am proud to call him a friend. Inspire your students through puzzles! The 36 Cube is a natural addition to any class and will equally frustrate, engage, and delight your students!

In my high school math classes, it is common that I start the class off with a brain teaser. This is usually a brain teaser puzzle from either ThinkFun's Visual Brain Storm set, an Ivan Moscovich or Martin Gardner book, or a brain teaser that I have gotten from the internet. The whole class participates and gets engaged in trying to solve these puzzles. If I ever forget the puzzle at the start of the class, they always remind me.

	Mat engages his students by beginning a lesson with a ThinkFun Visual Brainstorm challenge.

I have found brain teaser puzzles a great way to have fun, collaborate with each others, discuss problem solving techniques, and make connections to the curriculum. It is common that a student will think of a solution or strategy to a puzzle that I have never considered, and this always intrigues and excites me.

At the end of class, if students have some free time, I encourage them to try to solve some of the harder brain teaser puzzles, like a slider puzzle, Gordian’s Knot, or a disentanglement puzzle. They get right into solving these puzzles. Two things always surprise me when students are working on these puzzles — the problem solving strategies that they come up with on their own and their perseverance and determination to solve the puzzle. It is common that they want to borrow a puzzle from me at the end of class because they really want to finish it. As a puzzle enthusiast myself, I love bringing this world of logic and hands-on problem solving into my classroom to share with students!