Mouse over for submenus where applicable

I designed this puzzle, Digigrams, several years ago, one sleepless night looking at the digital alarm clock every few minutes for what seemed like forever. I started trying to put myself to sleep by counting the segments of each number. I eventually counted 49 segments but at this point I was still awake! I then started thinking about how to arrange those segments, and eventually in my half-awake state I realised that there were enough to form a 4x5 grid of squares. Then I started wondering if they would fit!  By now I was fully awake, and, in the middle of the night I got up and started making the first prototype, from matchsticks.

I strongly recommend this to you as it is such a delightfully simple idea, but very frustrating as you will soon discover. 

Simply (!) arrange the digits 1-9 & 0 in the tray as shown.

Take the nine digits and zero, as seen on a digital clock, calculator or microwave oven, make them out of matchsticks or short lengths of moulding, and assemble them into a 4x5 grid of squares as shown below. Flipping and rotating is allowed. Note that there is a small notch cut out of the side of the zero. Its purpose should be obvious. (Copyright Martin H. Watson, 2000, for a 2-dimensional packing puzzle, fitting the digits 1 to 9 plus zero into a 4x5 grid. Production of this design is only permitted on a single basis for personal use only. )

I would welcome additional puzzles using these pieces, which I may add here. This was an exchange puzzle in 2001, presented by Patrick Major, at the International Puzzle Party in Tokyo. The picture above shows the original version as used in Tokyo.

[Homepage] [What we've been up to] [About Me & Al] [Teddington] [Pictures] [Puzzles] [Puzzle News] [My Designs] [Collection on Flickr] [London Puzzle Party] [POTM] [Prague Puzzles] [Prague Puzzle Shops] [Misc Puzzle Stuff] [Puzzle Suppliers] [Mailbag] [Puzzle Bags] [Puzzling People] [Puzzles Too] [Music] [Misc] [My Films] [Links] [Credits etc] [Test Page]

www.flickr.com