Puzzle #587: Number Soup
Posted January 27, 2011 • #numbersoup
Like a mini chunk of sum sudoku, this number soup puzzle gives you number blocks and arithmetic clues to help place digits 1 through 9.
Go To Answer KeyComments
Joshua • 01/31/11 12:46 pm
In this case I think I can answer half of your question, Puzzle Fan. I asked him about puzzles I could use with my after-school math club students and talked about what aspects of his past puzzles looked like they'd be good. Putting together those pieces, he got the idea for these puzzles.
It's the step between idea and the finished puzzle that I want to know more about!
David Millar • 01/31/11 1:34 pm
Hey guys, thanks for the kind comments!
Joshua's comments are dead-on as far as the inspiration. From there, I started out placing sum and product cages like in sum sudoku/calcudoku and I also added some equations within the grid where two cells add to another cell. When I got around to drawing the puzzle for the PDF (I use Inkscape if anyone wonders), everything seemed to look nicer without cages and if I moved the extra sums and pieces outside the mini grid. From there, it was only a matter of tinkering and pushing pixels until it all looked right.
I'll definitely have to start posting more of these since they seem well-received. A fair warning if you have tech-savvy kids: I plan to post answer keys for many of these since another teacher has asked me in the past if I could do that more often.
Joshua • 02/03/11 10:33 am
Wow, the idea of putting the extra totals outside the puzzle was great. It makes them much easier to read, and it makes the equations look more like normal equations. I might rotate a few of the puzzles so that more of the equations run horizontally, to fit more closely with what kids are used to from school math. I also wonder if there's a way to make it more clear when you have "chained" equations like in the first puzzle today, like putting the bigger "bulb" for the final answer of the first equation, and/or using different colors for the different equation pieces?
Anyway I've tried these out with a couple of kids and gotten good enough feedback to try it today at the Oakland math circle. We'll see what they think!
Puzzle Fan • 01/31/11 11:59 am
Thanks! I found this to be a fun little puzzle! LOTS of fun! More fun than should be able to fit inside such a little package!
Tell us, how the heck do you come up with clever ideas like this, and how do you make them come to life?