JerryRabow@JerryRabow.com
Pieces for the
Square-Hexagram
Puzzle #01
The first puzzle I made, #01, happens to have been the simplest: just 5 pieces that can make either a square or a hexagram (six-pointed star polygon). But I didn’t start out with it because it’s simple – it was the first one I made because it is special for me. It was the first example of a geometric dissection that I came across, many years ago in a book by Martin Gardner about mathematical tricks and puzzles. But because of its relative simplicity, the Square-Hexagon puzzle offers a good introduction to the concept of geometric dissections, and the pieces should be simple to copy and cut out of paper or card stock.
To make a paper-and-scissors version of Puzzle #01, just print out the one-page 2D silhouette drawing of all five pieces and trace them or cut them out. The surface printed with the number of the piece is the “top” side; mark your pieces accordingly.
For those of you who use CAD software, I’m including the length and angle dimensions for each piece of the puzzle. If you have a 3D printer, you can convert the 2D shapes into 3D objects. (I made all pieces 5 mm high, but added a 2x2 mm ridge along the top edges to differentiate between the top and bottom surfaces.)
Here are the links to the pieces of Puzzle #01:
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