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All Wrapped Up

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Well, we're often wrapping up presents - I find that many of them arrive in boxes that are cuboid. Remember those? A cuboid has 6 faces; each face a rectangle (including squares); each face paired with one the same on the opposite side and all the angles 90 degrees. So they might look like these:

3cuboids

Now let's talk about the wrapping paper. You are probably used to using A4 paper for all kinds of things. A4 paper looks a bit like this:


A4Rectangle
But two A4s together make A3:



2A4's
So we have:

SimpleA3
Which could look better as:

A3withPatt
Now for easiness we'll approximate the size of the A3 sheet to 40cm by 30cm.

The wrapping paper we'll be using is A3-size, like the picture above.

So, we're wrapping up a cuboid in this A3 wrapping paper.
The challenge is to find the largest cuboid that can be covered completely with the A3 sheet - you will probably want to stick to whole numbers of centimetres!
Rather than wrapping the cuboid like we might do a birthday present, let's think about it as if we're trying to have as little overlap as possible.

You might do this practically or you may use diagrams or even a spreadsheet - it is up to you.

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Cubes

How many faces can you see when you arrange these three cubes in different ways?

The Big Cheese

Investigate the area of 'slices' cut off this cube of cheese. What would happen if you had different-sized block of cheese to start with?

Wrapping Presents

Choose a box and work out the smallest rectangle of paper needed to wrap it so that it is completely covered.

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The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice.

NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.

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