⬇️ Download and print this free paper ‘flexagon’ puzzle. Colour it in, cut it out, assemble – then pinch and flex to uncover the hidden side! See other files at the end if you want to branch out and create your own designs.

A hexaflexagon is a six sided shape (hexagon) which can flex and fold to show a new face (flexagon). They are fun to make and play with but can also be used to learn some computational thinking. Once assembled this one has three faces – the front and back which are there when you first fold it into shape, and a third which only appears once you make your first flex.

Once you assemble the flexagon you’ll hide the rabbit – flex the puzzle to find him.

You can keep pinching and flexing and the pattern will change, depending on where you flex from. Grown ups and bigger kids might enjoy finding out about finite state machines and how to create a ‘map’ (a graph) to describe how you’d navigate around your hexaflexagon. We also have a more complex hexahexaflexagon (a flexagon that has six different faces).

See our page on Computational Thinking: HexaHexaFlexagon Automata and download our free booklet (PDF) to find out more.

Computational Thinking: HexaHexaFlexagon Automata

⬇️ Other files

These files will let you create your own 3-sided flexagon.

• ⬇️ If you want to draw the design on paper use the PDF.
• ⬇️ If you want to paste in images using PowerPoint download the .pptx. (Note that this was created on a Mac computer and may look different on a Windows one).
• ⬇️ You can also use free Inkscape or any other vector graphics software to edit the .svg file.

They all look like this –