So there I was, waiting for my blood test at an MDS lab and ...

>Blood test?
Yeah. At my age I gotta get checked every year.
Anyway, while waiting, an old colleague that I hadn't seen for years sat down beside me.
While I was doing nothing but staring at the ceiling, he was solving SuDokus.

>Huh?
Yeah. I'd never heard of them either.
Anyway, he gave me a printout that he got here and I played with it, first with a smile, then with a curse ... or three.

After some time (I won't say how long!) I solved it and decided it'd be more fun (and less frustrating) to make my own

So if'n y'all want to try it, click on the picture:

click on the picture to download the spreadsheet

>I assume it's an Excel spreadsheet, right?
Indeed.

>And the solution to the sudoku in the spreadsheet?
Well, you get a different SuDoku every time you click the button, but the one shown has solution:

I should point out that the spreadsheet SuDokus ain't very sophisticated, but they're fun ... and frustrating.

>I especially like the ones where Degree of Difficulty = 1  

some History

• Apparently the first puzzle (called Number Place) was created by Howard Garns in the late 1970s and published in New York.
• It was introduced in the Japanese Monthly Nikolist in 1984 as Suji wa dokushin ni kagiru which (I understand)
  means: single celibate unmarried (?)
• The president of the Nikolist renamed the puzzle: Sudoku (sue-do-koo: su = number, doku = single).
• The puzzles became very popular in the U.K. in the last few years (with the Daily Telegraph introducing a daily version in Feb, 2005).
  Today there are hundreds of newspapers in dozens of countries that publish Sudoku puzzles.
  Examples: Chicago SunTimes   the Guardian   Hindu   Svenska (Sweden)   der Standard (Austria)   Aftenposten (Norway)   etc. etc.
• For the 9x9, the number of possible Sudokus is: 6,670,903,752,021,072,936,960

P.S.

click on the picture to download the spreadsheet

>Animals?
Yeah. You type in a number from 1 to 6 and it turns into an animal.

>You get a happy face when you got something right?
Yes indeedy ... if you get a row done right ... or a column or a 2x3 square.
You'll notice that sudoku-for-kids ain't symmetrical. My grandkids wouldn't appreciate symmetry anyway, so I didn't bother ...

>I think I'll play the Kiddie version.
That makes two of us.

See also Sudoku stuff and especially Kid stuff

do the SuDoku

If you'd like to see a sudoku and get a wee bit of help in solving it ...
>Now you're talkin' !
... you can try this guy which generates new sudokus and gives some help:

Click on the picture to download.

But, if you'd like to type in your own sudoku and get some help as well, then you can try this guy:
do the SuDoku

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