Vector Maze

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Instructions More Vectors

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Comment recorded on the 19 October 'Starter of the Day' page by E Pollard, Huddersfield:

"I used this with my bottom set in year 9. To engage them I used their name and favorite football team (or pop group) instead of the school name. For homework, I asked each student to find a definition for the key words they had been given (once they had fun trying to guess the answer) and they presented their findings to the rest of the class the following day. They felt really special because the key words came from their own personal information."

Comment recorded on the 14 September 'Starter of the Day' page by Trish Bailey, Kingstone School:

"This is a great memory aid which could be used for formulae or key facts etc - in any subject area. The PICTURE is such an aid to remembering where each number or group of numbers is - my pupils love it!
Thanks"

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© Transum Mathematics :: This activity can be found online at:
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Instructions

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Type numbers into the vectors to create movement. For example, in level 1 you may decide the first vector should represent five squares across (positive values move to the right and negative values left) and eleven squared down (positive values are up and negative values down).

Vector Maze Example

Press the 'Run Vectors' button to see the affect of your chosen numbers.

The objective is to find the shortest route to reach the red circle. You might be able to shorten your route if you use more vectors.

Currently the shortest route for this level (Level 1) has been achieved by someone claiming a trophy with the name Slayz9000 with a distance of 24.2 units on Monday, April 15, 2024. Can you beat that? If you can make sure you claim a trophy because that is how fast times are officially recognised.

Slayz9000

24.2

Can you find a shorter route?

You can calculate the length of each leg of your journey by using Pythagoras' Theorem. In the example below red lines have been drawn to show the horizontal and vertical components of the vector, 3 across and 4 down.

Finding the length of a vector

Prthagoras' Theorem states that the length of the hypotenuse (the blue line) is equal to the square root of the squares of the other two sides added together (the red lines).

Using Pythagoras' Theorem

So the length of this leg of your journey is 5 units. You will find that the lengths you are finding in this way don't often turn out to be whole numbers so you should round of the length of your complete journey to three significant figures.

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