Problem Solving for the Princess

We have been trying to problem-solve for Princess Funer in the Land of Centimeter all week.  Once we solve one problem, it seems another pops up!

The princess's first problem

On Tuesday we learned about her first problem:  The measuring-unit she had selected (centimeter bricks from the castle construction) was really heavy and carrying around a huge bag of them was hurting the villagers' backs.  We brainstormed lots of different solutions and found two that sounded worth trying.  One was that each person carries only one brick and uses it repeatedly.  The other was to trace the bricks onto lighter paper to use.

We tried the one-brick approach first.  We found that this worked well, but sometimes led to mistakes about how to count what we had drawn. (Do we could the lines? The spaces?)  Through lots of hard work, we found this to be a good strategy.  We sent our work to the Princess on Wednesday afternoon and awaited her verdict.

On Thursday morning we heard back from the Princess. She liked the idea, but thought that maybe tracing the bricks onto lighter paper would be even better for her aching shoulders and back.  So she tried it for us.  While it gave her accurate measurements, it was really tough to measure when it was windy, when  other people were around who might bump the light-weight paper bricks, or when the measurer is sneezing too much!  She asked if we could solve her next problem:  The paper bricks keep blowing away and getting bumped. We again brainstormed a list of ideas to help her.

The princess's second problem

On Friday, we decided to tape 30 of the paper bricks together to make one long measuring tool.  We tried it as a class and found that getting them just right was really difficult.  A student then suggested that we trace the bricks onto a long strip of paper and then not cut them out.  This seemed like a great idea, so we created long measuring tools made up of 30 centimeter cubes.

Before sending them to the princess, we tested them out by measuring some scary things from the Land of Centimeter - including the length of a paw-print from the ferocious Snugglewump.  We found that they were really useful and yet were lightweight enough to carry around.  We hope she likes them!  ...I wonder if she'll have another problem for us on Monday!