Last week I showed a picture of four puzzle books that I have at home. I had gone through them and marked down the puzzles that I liked. Today I created a version of one of the puzzles to use in the classroom. The puzzle is called Bridge Baffler and it is from the Puzzle Play book. Apparently it is a modeled after an older puzzle, but I could not find any sources online. I didn’t love how it looked after I scanned it from the book, and so I decided to make my own version. The basic goal of the puzzle is to use two planks of wood to allow someone or something that is stuck on a rectangular island to make it off of the island and onto the surrounding land. The catch is that the two planks of wood are identical in size, and both are shorter than the span between the island and the surrounding land. For an easier challenge, students can use the two planks as manipulatives. To make it harder, students can attempt the challenge without the plank manipulatives. You can access the puzzle here.
