SMRTR Science & EngineeringMay 24, 2026Science News

Math puzzle: The Ant Goes Marching

SMRTR summary

June the ant needs to find the shortest surface path to reach her food across four different 3D shapes — a cube, a rectangular prism, a cylinder, and a hollow cylindrical shell. The key trick is "unfolding" each shape flat, then drawing a straight line between start and finish. Each shape creates a unique geometry challenge, testing how shortest paths change depending on an object's dimensions and surface layout.

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