Home >> Toys >> Educational Toys

How to Make a Brainteaser

With a few steps you can make a homemade brainteaser that can keep you engaged for hours. Many physical brainteasers offer a poor return on investment as a homemade craft project. Their construction requires advanced wood- or metalworking, but once you know the solution, there is nothing more to do with them. You can recombine tangram puzzles, though, into many shapes for continuing mental exercise. They are easy to make out of readily available materials and allow you to keep making up new puzzles for yourself or a friend.

Things You'll Need

Pencil
Ruler
Foam core square
Craft knife

Instructions

- 1
  Make marks dividing each edge of the square into four equal quarters. Connect the marks on opposite sides to create a light 4-by-4 grid on the square.
- 2
  Draw light lines connecting the following pairs of points on the grid. In the coordinates (x, y), x refers to horizontal units and y refers to vertical units, with (0, 0) representing the lower left hand corner of the square. Connect:
  
  (0, 0) to (4, 4)
  
  (0, 4) to (3, 1)
  
  (2, 0) to (4, 2)
  
  (1, 1) to (3, 1)
  
  (3, 3) to (4, 2)
- 3
  Cut along the lines to form a total of seven pieces. There should be two large triangles, one medium triangle, two small triangles, a square and a parallelogram. A parallelogram has a horizontal top and bottom with parallel diagonal sides.
- 4
  Arrange the shapes to create different silhouettes. Find new challenges at the websites listed in the Resources section, or have a friend develop new shapes and draw their silhouettes for you to try to replicate using the tangram pieces.

Educational Toys