We received lots of correct answers to the
first part of this problem but very few of you told us how you went
about solving it. Some of you drew a diagram of Chippy's route,
which was a very good way of tackling it. Rukmini from Hopscotch
Nursery and Christy, sent particularly clear pictures. Here is
First I took some checked paper and drew a map showing North,
East, West and South. In the centre was the Base station which I
marked as B on the map. From B, I counted squares Chippy went
along. He seemed to go a bit round and round till he forgot where
the basic station was. I marked with a 'S' where he stopped. I drew
his way back with crosses. He needed to go $2$ m West to get back
to the Base station.
Tom who lives in New Zealand, solved the the
first part of problem in a different, but equally as good way. Here
is what Tom says:
This is a table showing how many metres Chippy went:
The north and the south amounts were the same so there was no
change there, but the east and the west amounts were different. The
east was $2$ metres more than the west. So you have to go $2$
metres in west at the end to get to Chippy's station.