A New Kind of Play for A-Puzzle-A-Day
Bruce Torrence

Proceedings of Bridges 2024: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Culture
Pages 587–594
Workshop Papers

Abstract

We typically build jigsaw puzzles piece by piece, starting with an empty tabletop and adding one piece at a time. For a puzzle whose pieces are polyominoes (which can fit together multiple ways) we explore a different paradigm: Starting from a completed puzzle, we perform a sequence of “moves” whereby an individual piece or an assemblage of contiguous pieces may be rotated or flipped, or pairs of such pieces or assemblages may be swapped, in order to arrive at a different configuration. In this workshop, we will explore this paradigm using A-Puzzle-A-Day, an eight piece polyomino puzzle that has different solutions for each day of the calendar year. While challenging, this mode of play is so versatile that from a single starting configuration, a sequence of moves can be made to reach a solution for any calendar date.

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