Math Playground
Activities

Solids

Find a cube, sphere, cylinder in your house — count the faces.

Look around the room. Hunt for cubes, spheres, cylinders, cones, pyramids, prisms. They're everywhere once you see them.

Spin the solid
Hexagonal prism
faces
8
edges
18
vertices
12
V − E + F = 1218 + 8 = 2

drag to rotate

Faces, edges, vertices

For every solid you find, count three things: F (flat faces), E (edges where faces meet), V (corner points). Write them in a table — a cube is F=6, E=12, V=8.

Euler's formula links them all: V − E + F = 2 for any convex solid. Cube: 8 − 12 + 6 = 2. Square pyramid: 5 − 8 + 5 = 2. It always works.

Your turn

A triangular prism has 2 triangular ends and 3 rectangular sides. How many vertices, edges and faces? Does Euler's formula hold?

Common 3D shapes in the wild

  • Cube — dice, sugar cube, building block
  • Cylinder — soup can, candle, drum
  • Sphere — ball, orange, bubble
  • Cone — ice cream cone, traffic cone, party hat
  • Pyramid — Egyptian pyramid, tent

Count faces, edges and vertices for each. Euler's formula: V − E + F = 2 (for any convex solid).