The Four Story Building
At the beginning, I gave the block to my husband and I explained to him the rules and how he must create as many 4-story building as he can, with the use of 50 orange and 50 black blocks, with out repeating the same order of colors. He tried for about half an hour and all he could accomplish was 12 buildings and he didn't want to go any further. As for me, I built 18 buildings in an hour and half. I thought of a pattern, which is starting by entering the orange color on the black building one, by one, then two by two, then three. When I reached the orange building, I did the opposite. I entered the black blocks one by one, two by two, then three -of course without repeating the same stories. Observe the picture from right to left.


The Changing Colors Rectangle
I took the "brain teaser" with me to school, where I teach and I gave it to two of my students to try it. One is an eighth grader with a B+ level, who did it in less than 3 minutes. The second one was an ADHD fifth grader. He has a good observation, quick answer to tricky questions, and gave up easily. He tried it for about 7 minutes. At first he moved correctly four steps, but then he lost it and he couldn't go back and start from the beginning. He had hard time remembering his own steps. At home, I gave it to my two sons. Anas, who is in third grade he did it in less than 5 minutes and he was able to remember his steps without any mistake. I was impressed. Aassem, who is in 9th grade, in honor classes, he tried for about an hour, giving up sometime and go back to it, then he was able to switch the colors with respect to the rules. But, he didn't want to do it again.