Tricky Triangles Puzzle

This tricky triangles puzzle has been around for over a century – can you arrange these eight sticks to form exactly four triangles and two squares?

The original puzzle was meant to be solved with matchsticks, but I don’t think I need to explain why I won’t be giving my students matchsticks to play with… Instead, I cut up some strips of cardstock for students to use.

I placed the cardstock “sticks” in one of my magnetic pockets I bought this summer for my classroom. They are coming in so handy for putting up puzzles in my classroom as well as organizing activities that have multiple levels/stages.

I originally ran across this puzzle in The 2nd Mammoth Book of Fun & Games by Richard B Manchester. But, a bit of googling revealed this is an old puzzle since the same puzzle can be found in a 1917 issue of Boys Life Magazine.

When I put up this tricky triangles puzzle a few weeks ago, I did discover one down-side to using strips of cardstock instead of the originally intended matchsticks. One of my students found an unintended solution. I told him it wasn’t the intended solution, but I gave him definite points for creativity!