8 Digit Puzzle – Rules, Downloadable and Questions to Ponder

A friend of mine is putting together an amazing class on using mathematics as meditation.

One of the tools she’ll be using is the 8 Digit Puzzle.

The 8 Digit Puzzle

To play, download or draw out the puzzle board on a piece of paper.

Then cut out the numbers 1-8 from slips of paper. Make sure your numbers will fit in your puzzle board’s boxes.

You can download the 8 Digit Puzzle Board & Numbers here (it also has some fun questions to ponder).

The board looks like this:

Place the numbers in the puzzle so that no two consecutive numbers are next to each other horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

For example, if you place the 7 as it is in the picture here, the other colored spots are the ones available for 6 and 8. The white spots are “off limits” for the consecutive numbers of 7.

Play it alone or with your kids.

The best part about this (and my friend’s class) is that you get to think about how you’re doing the puzzle. How do you process the rules and arrive at a solution?

And then you can share your methods with others!

This lets you (and them) discover new and curious ways of doing things – creating new neural pathways for more learning!

Ask questions!

If you get frustrated, don’t go right to googling the solution (spoiler solution is here). First ask yourself these questions:

For each number, ask, “How many consecutive numbers does this have?” For example, 5 has two consecutive numbers – 4 and 6.
For each box in the puzzle area, ask, “If a number is here, where can its consecutive numbers go?”

And there’s also these questions to ask as you work through:

Is there really a solution to this?
If there is a solution, is there any other solution?
Are there many solutions? How many?

Get freaky!

The 8 Digit Puzzle works great. But could there be a 6 digit puzzle with the same rules? Or a 7, 5 or 15 digit puzzle?

Can you create it?

Download the 8 Digit Puzzle Board & Numbers now and have fun. Don’t forget to share via Twitter & Facebook. And let me know how it goes in the comments!