COD Summer Bridge Enrichment - 2011

Ken Ken

Definition: A Kenken ™ is a Latin Square divided into "cages" - groups of cells sharing at least
one edge - where there is an operation (+,-,x,/) associated with each cage showing the result of applying

that operation to the numbers in the cells. If the operation is not associative and commutative (- or /) then

(typically) there are only two cells and the larger number precedes the smaller.

Here are some web sites containing good information about Kenken™ and Kenken™ strategies.

Harold Reiter is Professor of Mathematics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte and his site has a link to the Charlotte Teachers' Circle , a group of Charlotte area teachers that meets once or twice each month to talk math. They're a part of a national network of teacher circles. One of their activities last year involved solving Kenken® puzzles and Prof. Reiter wrote a nice paper on Kenken® strategies. (http://math.uncc.edu/~hbreiter/JRMF/KenKenJR11.pdf )

Prof. Reiter recommends Tom Davis’ Kenken for Teachers: http://www.geometer.org/mathcircles/kenken.pdf

This is written for teachers, but it’s just fine for students, too.

The official Kenken web site is: http://www.kenken.com/

The New York Times daily Kenken web site is: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/crosswords/kenken.html

Thomas Snyder’s website is promising: http://www.stanford.edu/~tsnyder/kenken.htm

Reading through these and taking time to work the various problems and devise your own ought to keep you busy for a while.

Oh, and this is a kinda cheesy basic intro video:

http://www.mrlsmath.com/mr-ls-videos/kenken-%E2%80%93-introduction-and-strategy-tips-to-solve-a-kenken-4x4-puzzle/