John Nicotra

Mr. Harris
Algebra II
11-7-17
Board of Checker Squares
Problem Statement:

John and Mark were bored of always playing checkers, so they thought of something fun

to mix it up. They wanted to find out how many squares are on the checkerboard, but could not

find a common solution. For this problem, we are trying to solve for the total amount of squares

in a 9x9 checkerboard. However, we must account for squares of ALL sizes in the checkerboard.

So, we must find the total amount of 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, 6x6, 7x7, 8x8, and 9x9 squares on

the checkerboard. Then we must explain the strategy we used to find the total amount of squares

and create a formula that can be used to find the total amount of squares on a checkerboard.

Process:

In order to find the total amount of squares in a 9x9 checkerboard the equation (10-x)

squared. The equation is used to solve for the number of 1x1 to 9x9 squares on a 9x9

checkerboard. For the equation, x equals either 1 for 1x1 squares, 2 for 2x2 squares, and so on all

the way to 9 for 9x9 squares. Then the numbers are plugged into x.

XxX X (10-x) squared # of Squared

1x1 1 (10-1) squared 81

2x2 2 (10-2) squared 64

3x3 3 (10-3) squared 49

4x4 4 (10-4) squared 36

 5x5 5 (10-5) squared 25

6x6 6 (10-6) squared 16

7x7 7 (10-7) squared 9

8x8 8 (10-8) squared 4

9x9 9 (10-9) squared 1

Once the totals of the squares are found they are all added up:

81+64+49+36+25+16+9+4+1 = 285 squares total

So the overall process to solve for the number of squares in 9x9 checkerboard is by using (10-x)

squared then adding all the totals together to get the total amount of squares.

Solution:

The work checks out and the total number of squares in a 9x9 checkerboard are 285

squares. Thanks to the equation (10-x) squared I was able to plug in all the different sizes of

squares for x and find the total number of that sized square are in a 9x9 checkerboard.