# Moving matchsticks

There are 10 squares in the figure. Move 3 matchsticks to create 17 squares. Squares don't have to be equal in size?

• $Move$ 3 matchsticks or $Remove$? – Seyed Dec 28 '17 at 17:06
• Mostly likely move... Remove would be impossible? @Seyed – Quintec Dec 28 '17 at 17:07
• The obvious solution has 17 squares and one extra match sticking out like a sore.. stick. This is, in general, an uncool thing: all the matches should be meaningful parts of the solution. I hope there is a less obvious solution that makes use of all the matches. – Bass Dec 28 '17 at 17:12
• It also means there is no unique solution. The sore-stick solution can be formed in 16 different ways. – ekhumoro Dec 28 '17 at 22:02
• Assuming there really is no clever "other solution", I'd like to suggest a slight modification: remove the middle stick in the vertical line of 5 sticks, and transform the problem into this famous one. Notice the lack of sore sticks, how the starting position is 4-way symmetric and the answer is not, and how all the squares in the starting position are non-adjacent, and the answer has squares crammed in as tight as possible. – Bass Dec 28 '17 at 23:44