Cover a table with the hat tile
A friend has invited you to do this with them.
The hat is a 13-sided shape that covers a flat surface without gaps but never in a repeating pattern, the first single tile known to do so. Its authors' page has a browser app that builds patches of hats and saves them as pictures, so the only kit you need is a printer, card and scissors.
GentleFreeA few weeksIndoorsAlone or with others
Someone who has done it
David Smith, who found the hat, cut 60 of them from card to see how they fitted, Quanta Magazine reported. He is one of the four authors of the page linked here.
How to start
- Open the hat page and try the browser app, or the Mathigon polypad it links to, to see how the tiles fit.
- Save a patch as a picture, print it and cut out 30 tiles from thin card.
- Fit them together on a table, flipping tiles where you need to, and photograph the biggest patch you make.
Where to go
We opened this link on 11 October 2026 and found it to be what we say. Dates, places and prices are on the official page, where they stay up to date.
Plan this
Pick a day, or a month, and we will set out how to get ready, step by step, with a date and a reason for each. Projects run over months and stall without a rhythm, so the plan sets milestones you can see.
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