Crate Cubing

Crate Collection in Northcote, as described here.

Crate Cube, 2 x 2 x 2?

No, a fake, only 7!

Crate Cube, 3 x 3  x 3?

No, a fake, only 19!

Hi

I am a long term blogger and follow a few other long term bloggers, Jun in Canada and Auntie Helen in Germany. Both occupy themselves with tilebagging, or using bike-mounted GPS to record arrival in particular square kilometres. Adjacent squares can be bagged to build up connected and filled in patterns of tiles, like large squares. Jun doesn't get too fussed about large squares but does ride to fill in empty squares and see extra sights.  However Auntie Helen goes out of her way, or motivates her riding by bagging large, completely filled in squares in Germany.

Tilebagging, Courtesy https://www.monaxle.com/2017/10/24/veloviewer-explorer-tile-bagging/

In this post, she gets tiles by visiting an airport during a quiet period of enforced covid 19 lockdown and also makes 2 attempts to bag a tile which is mostly covered by a military base.

So I am filled with curiosity and awe about tilebagging, but am never going to bother with the extra techno-burden of using a gps and actual tilebagging. But I have been collecting milk crates on bikes lately, and thought of an alternative I can do, "crate cubing".

This involves creating a cube of n x n x n milk crates (or anything), making an image of it, then showing the image and bragging about it on the internet. The bigger n is the better! The photos above show my efforts.

And, just because I can, and because it is relatively harmless, and because it is mathematically interesting, I have indulged in a bit of fake it till you make it. In this, I am not in the same league as John Friedrich or Belle Gibson , nor do I want to be!

This fakery involves making something that looks like a cube out of the crates, but it is just a shell, showing the minimum number of crates required to fool someone. Friedrich did a similar thing, "at times using as security empty crates that he persuaded bankers contained expensive equipment". But I don't think you are being a fraudster (or anyone would know or care) if you overstate your supply of milkcrates. But this might make a reasonable fun class exercise (maths without knowing you're doing it) Some calcs are shown below.

And just to be complete, this isn't the first time I've proposed a new quest. Here I talked about Wycheproofing, or climbing Victoria's smallest mountain as a contrast to Everesting, or climbing the height of the World's highest mountain by bike or running.

Best Wishes

Steve Nurse