There are 92 NRICH Mathematical resources connected to Being resourceful, you may find related items under Developing positive attitudes.
Broad Topics > Developing positive attitudes > Being resourceful
Add or subtract the two numbers on the spinners and try to complete a row of three. Are there some numbers that are good to aim for?
Use the differences to find the solution to this Sudoku.
These eleven shapes each stand for a different number. Can you use the number sentences to work out what they are?
This challenge is a game for two players. Choose two of the numbers to multiply or divide, then mark your answer on the number line. Can you get four in a row?
Imagine you were given the chance to win some money... and imagine you had nothing to lose...
Use the interactivity to find out how many quarter turns the man must rotate through to look like each of the pictures.
Why not challenge a friend to play this transformation game?
These pieces of wallpaper need to be ordered from smallest to largest. Can you find a way to do it?
These rectangles have been torn. How many squares did each one have inside it before it was ripped?
Find the frequency distribution for ordinary English, and use it to help you crack the code.
The clues for this Sudoku are the product of the numbers in adjacent squares.
Semi-regular tessellations combine two or more different regular polygons to fill the plane. Can you find all the semi-regular tessellations?
Six balls are shaken. You win if at least one red ball ends in a corner. What is the probability of winning?
Seven balls are shaken. You win if the two blue balls end up touching. What is the probability of winning?
A game in which players take it in turns to try to draw quadrilaterals (or triangles) with particular properties. Is it possible to fill the game grid?
A game in which players take it in turns to turn up two cards. If they can draw a triangle which satisfies both properties they win the pair of cards. And a few challenging questions to follow...
A game for 2 or more people, based on the traditional card game Rummy.
Can you find the values at the vertices when you know the values on the edges?
Can you work out what step size to take to ensure you visit all the dots on the circle?
Draw some isosceles triangles with an area of $9$cm$^2$ and a vertex at (20,20). If all the vertices must have whole number coordinates, how many is it possible to draw?
Players take it in turns to choose a dot on the grid. The winner is the first to have four dots that can be joined to form a square.
If you move the tiles around, can you make squares with different coloured edges?
Can you find a cuboid that has a surface area of exactly 100 square units. Is there more than one? Can you find them all?
A spider is sitting in the middle of one of the smallest walls in a room and a fly is resting beside the window. What is the shortest distance the spider would have to crawl to catch the fly?
As you come down the ladders of the Tall Tower you collect useful spells. Which way should you go to collect the most spells?
Some children were playing a game. Make a graph or picture to show how many ladybirds each child had.
Each of the nets of nine solid shapes has been cut into two pieces. Can you see which pieces go together?
You have been given three shapes made out of sponge: a sphere, a cylinder and a cone. Your challenge is to find out how to cut them to make different shapes for printing.
My two digit number is special because adding the sum of its digits to the product of its digits gives me my original number. What could my number be?
There are three baskets, a brown one, a red one and a pink one, holding a total of 10 eggs. How many eggs are in each basket?
A hexagon, with sides alternately a and b units in length, is inscribed in a circle. How big is the radius of the circle?
How many different symmetrical shapes can you make by shading triangles or squares?
How many moves does it take to swap over some red and blue frogs? Do you have a method?
Ten cards are put into five envelopes so that there are two cards in each envelope. The sum of the numbers inside it is written on each envelope. What numbers could be inside the envelopes?
Imagine you have an unlimited number of four types of triangle. How many different tetrahedra can you make?
What is the greatest number of counters you can place on the grid below without four of them lying at the corners of a square?
Here are the six faces of a cube - in no particular order. Here are three views of the cube. Can you deduce where the faces are in relation to each other and record them on the net of this cube?
Can you fill in this table square? The numbers 2 -12 were used to generate it with just one number used twice.
Katie had a pack of 20 cards numbered from 1 to 20. She arranged the cards into 6 unequal piles where each pile added to the same total. What was the total and how could this be done?
On a farm there were some hens and sheep. Altogether there were 8 heads and 22 feet. How many hens were there?
Chris and Jo put two red and four blue ribbons in a box. They each pick a ribbon from the box without looking. Jo wins if the two ribbons are the same colour. Is the game fair?
Charlie likes tablecloths that use as many colours as possible, but insists that his tablecloths have some symmetry. Can you work out how many colours he needs for different tablecloth designs?
How many winning lines can you make in a three-dimensional version of noughts and crosses?
How many solutions can you find to this sum? Each of the different letters stands for a different number.
Charlie and Abi put a counter on 42. They wondered if they could visit all the other numbers on their 1-100 board, moving the counter using just these two operations: x2 and -5. What do you think?
Using the digits 1 to 9, the number 4396 can be written as the product of two numbers. Can you find the factors?
In 15 years' time my age will be the square of my age 15 years ago. Can you work out my age, and when I had other special birthdays?
Use these four dominoes to make a square that has the same number of dots on each side.