Calvin Mulcahy

Problem Statement:
A rubiks cube is a large cube made up of smaller cubes. Each face of the cube is
painted which means their are a number of smaller cubes with one to three faces painted. Start
out with a five by five cube and find out how many of the one cm cubes have one face painted,
two faces painted, and three faces painted. Now try to generalize the size of the cube in terms
of N.
Process:
To start I had to find how many of the smaller cubes had one face painted. To do this I
counted how many there were on one side of the cube. I then multiplied this by the number of
faces on a cube which is six. I found that 54 cubes had one face painted. To find the number of
smaller cubes that had two faces painted I counted how many there were on one edge. I then
multiplied this by the number of edges there are on a cube which is 12 and found that 36 cubes
have two faces painted. And to find the number of smaller cubes that have three faces painted
is the same for all cubes. Only the corners of the cube will have three sides painted which is 8 .
Generalizing this into terms of N was replacing the number five with N.
Solution:
When I counted the smaller cubes To find the number of smaller cubes that only had one
face painted I made the equation ((N-2 x N-2)) times the number of sides the cube has which is
six. To find the number of smaller cubes that have two faces painted i used the equation (N-2)
and then multiplied it by the number of edges the cube has which is 12. The number of smaller
cubes that have three side painted will always be the same because it is only the corners that
the cube has which is 8.
New Problem:
Imagine you have a 5x5 rubiks cube with the outside faces painted and the 3x3 cube
inside the 5x5 had its outside faces painted. How many cubes have one face painted? Two
faces painted? And three faces painted?