About Tanzzle
Tangle'nTanzzle
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The
name derives from the well known tangram game. Tangram is a Chinese
puzzle made by cutting a square of thin material into five triangles, a
square, and a rhomboid. The tangram pieces are named tans and can be
arranged on a plane in a virtually infinite number of configurations.
Indeed, many variants of the tangram game have been and can be
developed, using tans of other shapes. More than 30 new designs of sets
were made in Germany by Ritcher & Co, toward the end of 19th
century. Tangram and the other dissection puzzles were made from stone
and named 'The Anchor Puzzles'. Indeed, in the case of Tangram-like
puzzles, it is hard to find books or other sources for the silhouettes
to be guessed. Such a limitation have been removed with Tanzzle, which
is an almost endless source of silhouettes built from either
Tangram or other sets of tans. We are currently proposing four sets: Tangram, Trapeze, Phytagoras and Number 5
The starting dissection
The starting dissection
SILHOUETTES
There exist many books containing hundreds of patterns obtained by arranging the Tangram pieces. The figures are printed in such a way you cannot detect the borders of matched pieces. The puzzle just consists in realizing how those silhouettes can be get using all the seven not-overlapping pieces. The silhouettes often look like animals, humans, objects, and others. Tangram tradition is focused onto pattern recognition, that is to say there is a sort of game in the game to consider silhouettes who represent something or someone. Patterns are mainly of interest to a Tangram player as far as he is challenged to solve them. But the visual effect is important, as well. Enjoy both with Tanzzle.
A figurative silhouette
There exist many books containing hundreds of patterns obtained by arranging the Tangram pieces. The figures are printed in such a way you cannot detect the borders of matched pieces. The puzzle just consists in realizing how those silhouettes can be get using all the seven not-overlapping pieces. The silhouettes often look like animals, humans, objects, and others. Tangram tradition is focused onto pattern recognition, that is to say there is a sort of game in the game to consider silhouettes who represent something or someone. Patterns are mainly of interest to a Tangram player as far as he is challenged to solve them. But the visual effect is important, as well. Enjoy both with Tanzzle.
A figurative silhouette
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CONVEX FIGURES A hard-to-solve pattern has as few dangling pieces as possible. From this point of view, the convex figures should be the best, but well known.A figure is called convex when every point on a line joining any two points of the figure lies within the figure itself. There exist exactly 13 convex figure, which can be obtained with the Tangram pieces. This was rigorously demonstrated by F. T. Wang and C. C. Hsung in the "American Mathematical Monthly", volume 19, 1942. |
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MATCHED
PATTERNS It's easy to identify dangling pieces (e.g. the tail of the cat on the left). As a rule of thumb, hard-to-solve patterns are built by matching as much edges and vertices of the pieces as possibile, as in the convex figures. Tanzzle software deals with both matched patterns and dangling pieces. All the silhouettes can be described in this way. The patterns which cannot be described as done, can be slightly modified, still mantaining almost the same silhouette and resemblance. |
Links:
about Tangram and dissection
puzzles
Wikipedia
Randy's Tangrams
Andrea's Dissection Puzzles
Tangrammit
S.T.Han
Mathematische-Basteleien
Elliottt Avedon Museum
Puzzles of the Month
Archimedes lab
Tom Scavo's Tangrams
Ten Millions of Tangram Patterns
Tangram Font
Logicville
Tangram Magic Egg
Puzzookies
about Tangram and dissection
puzzles
Wikipedia
Randy's Tangrams
Andrea's Dissection Puzzles
Tangrammit
S.T.Han
Mathematische-Basteleien
Elliottt Avedon Museum
Puzzles of the Month
Archimedes lab
Tom Scavo's Tangrams
Ten Millions of Tangram Patterns
Tangram Font
Logicville
Tangram Magic Egg
Puzzookies
