These were the solutions that you realised were easier to illustrate that explain. Some of the diagrams looked different but were either rotations or reflections of the same solution like these the first from Jesse of Tattingstone Primary, the second from Denizhan , Deniz , Cansu and Kaan, pupils from Mef School, Turkey and Sayomi from Victoria, Australia:

Problem 1
problem 1.

The blank squares represent the squares that are dismantled to remove their sticks for use in another position. This solution to problem 1 was put into words by Mark:

... take the two top (or bottom) right (or left) sticks and put them into the bottom right sector - so that they cross each other at right angles - to make the square divided into four smaller squares.

To move four sticks to create three squares, Alex from Wesley College Melbourne, Australia advised:

... grab the right, bottom, side stick (as well as) the one in the bottom right corner and put them onto the top squares and then the top ones go to the middle ones and you have three squares!

Let's look at that suggestion -

Problem 2

changes from 4 to 3 squares

problem 2.


This was the problem people thought was tricky and came up with some pretty tricky, and creative, solutions to.

U-shape of blocks.
L-shape of blcoks.

Sara from Wales found an alternative solution:

Lewis shows us a solution for turning six squares into two by removing six sticks. Sounds rather impossible, unless you have good visual sense - and many of you proved that you had super sense!

rectangle of blocks. Problem 4
from 6 to 2
Rectangle of blocks with corner block missing. Problem 5
from 6 to 6 with 2 removed...
but can you see where all 6 are ??
Rectangle of blocks with corner block missing but rotated 180 degrees.

Thank you to Dougall from from Wesley College Melbourne, Australia for the solution to Seeing Squares problem number 5. Thanks to David and Stevie for their contributions to the solutions.