Drink Mazes - A Maze Collection to make you thirsty

February 14, 2021

Tengo sed ahora. And because of that I am thinking about different drinks. While I have made many different mazes for my daily maze they are not pulled together into themed collections unless I do it in a blog post. Why would someone want a maze of drinks ? I’m not sure, but here are my top drink mazes !

My Top 10 Favorite Drink Mazes

If you you are going to have a cerveza that says BEER as the brand name it should come in a can. I think it might be illegal otherwise (guessing). This Beer Can Maze uses a horizontal maze construction. It is more complicated than it looks just because of its size. And once you are done drinking a beer in a can the only logical thing to do is crush the can. Thus, the Crushed Beer Can Maze using a free drawn construction. One of my favorite mazes !

Beer can maze — Beer Can Maze

download Beer Can Maze

crushed beer can maze 1.24.19.png — Crushed Beer Can Maze

download Crushed Beer Can Maze

Maybe that isn’t crushed enough. STEP ON IT. Much better. Crushed Can Maze.

Crushed Can Maze 9.27.19.png — Crushed Can Maze

download Crushed Can Maze

For the fancy people who need their beer to be in a bottle. This Bottled Beer Maze uses a mixed section maze construction, part grid maze, part standard maze.

Let’s get all the alcoholic drinks out of the way together. Ever notice how every drink has it’s own type of special glassware ? We have a Margarita Maze (with salt and lime), a Martini Maze (with stir and olive), a Mimosa Maze (with an orange slice), and finally the Red Wine Maze (with a large wine glass).

Martini maze — Martini Maze

download Martini Maze

And now on to a few all ages beverages. We start with an Iced Tea Maze done with a cut thru maze construction, meaning you travel ON the line to solve the maze, not in between them.

Finally, we end with the Root Beer Float Maze. You either love the flavor or hate it, but adding ice cream certainly helps !

You can find some other Drink Mazes on the site, including a couple in the Fan Art section.

Since this list was posted I have transitioned the site to maze art..which are much better ! Check out my home page or the below links to see larger, nicer mazes !

Rock n Roll Hall of Fame Museum Maze

Pro Football Hall of Fame Museum Maze

Templo de Sangre de Cristo Laberinto

My 2020 Year in Review

December 31, 2020

I wanted to write a year end review for the website to reflect on what I accomplished for the year. Yes, I made a lot of mazes, but I did more than that, expanding what I did and how I did it. This post might just be for me, but I am happy (smiley face maze upcoming below) to take you along on the journey. Enjoy.

Daily Mazes posted:

366 in 2020 vs. 365 in 2019

Well the number is somewhere near this. Some days I did post more than one to commemorate something happening in the news or to celebrate a holiday. Either way for the last 2 years I have posted a new maze each and every day. And this year, thanks to the leap year we got an extra one ! Yea us !

My Favorite Mazes from the year:

#6 Smiley Face Weaving Maze - From my Weaving Maze book available on Amazon. Free weaving mazes.

#5 “Kitchen Sink” Arrow Maze - From my Arrow Maze book available on Amazon. Free Arrow Mazes.

#4 Jet Fighter Maze - Find the vehicle mazes on the site

#3 US Penny Maze

#2 Snowman Weaving Maze - Part of the Holiday Maze collection.

#1 Playhouse Square Sign, Cleveland, Ohio

Blog Posts:

102 vs. 26

I took a break in the Summer from posting blog content to work on my How To Make a Maze content. When I completed them I was able to post 40 different maze construction step by step instructions and an overview post. They were posted starting daily October 1. That really added significantly to my content. I followed those up with how to draw a labyrinth instructions. Overall, a great year for my blogging !

Name Mazes Made

247 vs. 1,499

Well, they can’t all be winners ! I spent a huge amount of time in 2019 researching the most popular names in the US, then the world and making mazes from them. You can read about how I chose the names HERE. I had a lot of fun, but felt I needed to branch out into other projects. I figured out I had over 70% of all Americans covered, and most likely similar high percentages of Western names. So 2020 meant only doing requests when they were submitted, until I wrote the draft of this and started back up !

Books posted online:

8 vs. 19

In 2020 my monthly daily maze themes allowed me to create monthly themed books from their content. It allowed me to practice making book covers, collating mazes, pagination, creating solution pages, converting images to different file types, and even more. Now in 2019 I made many books to create some interesting content for the site. But, making a book each month is great practice for…..

Books Published on Amazon:

3 (13 versions) vs. 0

I published my first 3 books on Amazon. And with a bit of help I translated 2 of them into 3 additional languages. Then I realized that Arrow Maze Books do not need to be printed (no pencil needed!) , but then I had to figure out how to correctly make what is essentially a picture book for Kindle. Well it took awhile, but I now understand how to do it, giving me 4 more Kindle versions of my Arrow Maze Book. So 3 books, 13 versions ! I have to say, all the practice throughout the year definitely help make these books better !!!

Website Traffic growth:

+1000%+

The website traffic grew year over year by more than 1000% and it has the potential to grow by the same in the future as I learn more about image SEO. There is plenty of content on how to improve your written SEO with key words, and great content etc. But not much at all on how to improve your Image SEO. This is basically an image website - that is how people stumble upon it. Then if I do find it, how does it relate to my website builder template (the answer is not well). So I am running blind a bit here, but optimistic for the future.

Different countries visiting the site:

99 vs. 20

Without getting in the weeds on the analytics of the site, I believe the maze images are multilingual friendly. I also published books into 4 languages on worldwide Amazon sites. I have multiple sections of the site and blog posts that are focused on other languages than English. Well, depending on where you look the number of countries in the world is around 195, so I hit half of them in 2020 ! Definitely have a goal to raise this number in 2021 ! (as I keep hoping for a new country to hit 100 these last days of December…nope…….again…nope)

Requests for Maze use:

YouTube Videos Created and watched:

YouTube Subscribers:

RSS Subscribers to the blog:

Books Sold on Amazon:

Up higher by infinity

I had multiple requests this year to use my mazes in classrooms, in a newspaper, and for use in creating some new digital mazes. I like to collaborate and was excited for each of these opportunities ! I also did a few basic videos for some of the blog posts to better explain how to make mazes/labyrinths. They are private on YouTube, but I still managed to get my first subscriber ! And finally I have a group of people who subscribe to this blog and might be reading this right now ! Hi ! All these are small numbers, but they were 0 last year, so each has grown.

So that is my year in review. I learned a lot. I hope to continue growing the site, making more books, and of course posting at least one new maze each and every day !

And because this is the internet, we can travel into the future and see what happens:

MY 2021 YEAR IN REVIEW

MY 2022 YEAR IN REVIEW

How to Make a Math Maze

November 24, 2020

In a series of posts I will show you how to make a maze in a wide variety of design constructions. The 40th type of maze construction is the Math maze (a variation of the Number maze). Let’s define what I mean, then get into the example. This maze type is not conducive to outline or shapes so I will use a traditional grid like pattern to illustrate the creation.

Math Maze - A type of number maze where moving from the Start to the Goal is done by correctly answering math problems to move in the correct direction.

HOW TO MAKE A MATH MAZE

Step 1 - Draw the Outline Structure

The outline structure of the math maze should include spaces for math problems with multiple possible pathways branching away from it that will include possible answers. Problems can be housed in circles, bubbles, or any other shape you find interesting. My example includes the most common shape - rectangles. You can download 10 free templates here.

Step 1.5 - Choose the Start and Goal

No surprise these will typically be on opposite ends of most structures. Remember to leave room in the START square for a math problem ! I always make the final space the GOAL with the last answer leading the solver to it.

Step 2 - Start Adding Math Problems

Unlike most mazes, the Math maze starts with a problem in the first square. In my example I use addition and subtraction of positive and negative numbers, a common problem that is easy for anyone to get incorrect, not just new learners (but especially new learners).

Step 3 - Add possible plausible answers

In my example using the addition and subtraction of both positive and negative numbers besides the correct answer there are very common wrong answers. Those should go on the other possible pathways. For the START problem the 3 most common answers are 19 (correct), 1 and -1. If you wanted to lead a student to the correct answer you could use obviously incorrect possibilities like 5 and 7 (but then it would not be challenging). For the second problem there are 8 possible answers (really 7 if you do not consider the path you arrived on). Each number used is a possible answer based on common mistakes so the solver really needs to understand what you are calculating to get the answer correct !

Step 4 - Create the Solution

Make the solution to the maze based on the math problems and correct pathways.

Step 5 - Create False Pathways

Fill in any remaining blocks with incorrect answers, and alternative math problems. If you want to steer students/solvers towards PAST missed answers you can make the false pathways they have taken CORRECT for the next answer by reverse engineering the next math problem, essentially returning them on the pathway they just came from. This will make the student move back and forth between the two problems - hopefully realizing something must be wrong !

3 x 4 math maze using addition and subtraction

Step 6 - (optional) Add Directions

Add directions to explain to the solver how they can move through the maze if you believe it is needed. Most math mazes are self explanatory.

Step 7 - Create a Final Solution

Highlight the correct path in the final version of the maze to create the final maze solution (shown here in gold).

Additional Math Maze Examples

The most difficult thing about making a math maze is the math ! Here is a second example of a Math maze adding in multiplication and division to add difficulty and really test comprehension of the order of operations !

4x3 Math Maze example order of operations — Math Maze based on the order of operations rules

Here is a second example of a math maze that is a bit more complicated than it initially looks. All you need to do is move from start to finish, summing each number you pass over. In order to reach the goal correctly you must reach the number 25 exactly from traversing the maze. So while there are no math problems so solve, there is one large math puzzle. The making of this is very different from my step by step instructions above, so it has it’s own How to Make a Math Addition Trail Maze post.

And finally if you are looking for a resource that can help you determine what math problems go with what grade level I suggest you check out the Math Worksheet Center.

For my last example I want to make sure you know about Area Mazes. Called a maze, but actually a type of logic puzzle from Japan created by Naoki Inaba. Used to teach Japan children mathematics and logic. Solving requires calculating the area of a rectangle, often multiple times. Also called Menseki Meiro. If you would like to try to solve some, online area mazes can be found here. Or if you want to read my review of 2 Area Maze books, check this out.

In the below example (you are trying to find the area of the blank box) you would first solve the wall under the # 12. You solve the equation 4 * X = 12. So X = 3, meaning the bottom left side of the square has a length of 3. Now you can solve using the 3 and the 21 to calculate the length of the left side of the square above the 4. Solve 3 * X = 21. The answer is 7. Continue this to solve the Area Maze.

MATH MAZE OR NUMBER MAZE ?

There are a few examples that fall into a grey area between what I call number mazes and what I call Math Mazes. Number Mazes aren’t so much about doing math as counting by a certain number, like 7 in the first example below. You can learn how to make number mazes here. The next 2 examples are probably math mazes but if you called them number mazes I would not fight you. The middle example you need to understand which numbers are divisible by 3 to solve (seems like a math maze to me). The last example you need to know what an even number is and strategically move to a higher even number to solve the maze (number maze?). My point is you can get creative depending on what you are attempting to teach !