This Lego isn’t just fun to play with: you can also eat it, because it’s chocolate! Akihiro Mizuuchi has made a Lego-shaped mold for chocolate. He pours melted multi-colored chocolate into it, and it hardens into tasty snap-together bricks. These bricks are hollow at the bottom, so they snap together well — if they haven’t already melted in your hands.
Wee ones: How many colors of Lego can you count in the picture?
Little kids: If you take a layer of chocolate Legos, then snap a layer of real Legos on top, then a layer of chocolate Lego, then real ones…can you eat the 9th layer? Bonus: If you start with 4 layers of chocolate, THEN stack 1 real Lego layer and alternate, can you eat this 9th layer?
Big kids: If Akihiro has to melt a chocolate bar to make 4 Lego bricks, how many bars does he need to make 16 bricks? Bonus: If he’s building a chocolate castle that is 5 bricks wide across the front and back and 6 bricks across the left wall and right wall, and he builds 10 layers and then tops it with a 100-brick roof, how many chocolate Legos does he need to make for it?
The sky’s the limit: If Akihiro wants a giant Lego brick whose length can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6, what’s the *smallest* number of bumps long that it can be?
Answers:
Wee ones: We count 7 colors: blue, white, green, pink, and 3 unique shades of brown.
Little kids: Yes, because all odd-numbered layers will be chocolate. Bonus: Not this time, since the 5th layer is now real Lego along with the odd layers that follow.
Big kids: 4 chocolate bars. Bonus: 320 Legos: 50 for the front wall, 50 more for the back, 60 each for the left and right walls, and 100 on top.
The sky’s the limit: 60 bumps long. You don’t need to multiply out the big number 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6, because you don’t need so many factors. Once a number is divisible by 2 and 3, it’s automatically divisible by 6. And once it’s divisible by 4, you don’t need to multiply again by 2 to be divisible by 2 or 6. All you need is 2 x 2 x 3 x 5.
