Puzzle-lympics

Puzzle-lympics

North Hills Puzzle-lympics Tournament
North Hills Puzzle-lympics Tournament
 
Puzzle-lympics is a five-event problem-solving tournament for students in grades 5-6. The five events are unique, original puzzles developed and tested by Martin Richter, West View Gifted Ed. Instructor. The puzzles are adapted from existing games, or from academic activities. There is no other event devoted to this range of puzzles for elementary school.
 
Students at Puzzle-lympics
Students at Puzzle-lympics

The five tournament events are:

Big Toe, a super-sized version of tic-tac-toe designed for 3-5 players using an entire sheet of graph paper.
 
Two-Part Strangies challenges students’ flexibility of thinking. Contestants find a variety of associations between random nouns.
 
Protractor Treasure Hunt competitors track down a mystery object using a map with angle measure and segment length clues.
 
Cracker is a race against the clock to break large composite numbers into prime factors.

Krazy Kubes contestants assemble increasingly difficult designs using groups of blocks.

 

In 2008, the first Puzzle-lympics tournament was held at West View Elementary School. Over the years, the tournament moved to the North Hills Middle School, hosting students from all North Hills elementary schools. Last year, 76 students competed for trophies, medals, and ribbons.

Here are links to our press coverage!

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2014

McKnight Journal, 2010

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2009

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 2008

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