What Was in the Box?


For the first example the multiplier could be

2 with 28,12,56,108 being the starting numbers
4 with 14,6,28,54
8 with 7,3,14,27
 
For the second example the multiplier would be
11 with 13,27,31,111 being the starting numbers.
Previous answers:-
 
Rhiannon from St Mary Redcliffe Primary School thought hard about the first part of this problem:

I worked out all the numbers that would go into the smallest number (24) and tested each of them out by using a calculator to divide them into the other numbers (56, 112, and 216).
The largest was 8.

That's a great method - well done, Rhiannon. (Luca from Devonshire Primary School told us that the possibilities for the first challenge were 1, 2, 4 and 8, so 8 is indeed the largest.)

In a great team effort, Class 7P at Loretto Junior School sent us a solution to the second part of the problem:

In the second problem the numbers coming out were all odd. So we thought the multiply number would be odd.
We knew it could not be 3 or 9 etc because the digit total of 143 was not a multiple of 3.
Graeme said maybe they were all prime numbers so the box number would be 1.
However Zabrina and Angus suddenly saw the common factor was 11!