Bob Henderson en wedstrijd 26

Bob Henderson zag het heel groot (hij is trouwens een Amerikaan ;-) en nam een voorbeeld aan het heelal.

Vooraleer hij echter deze oplossing vond was er heel wat werk en correspondentie vooraf gegaan.
Hij vond een drietal oplossingen van 50

  "The attached Excel file shows my best result of 51 squares for your pentomino path competition.  I think that a path length of 52 or 53 squares may be possible, so I will keep looking for improvements.  When I can't find a better solution manually, I am sure that I can program my computer to look for one instead.  I'll let you know if I find any longer paths. . .  Thanks for sharing this interesting challenge!"  

"Please let me know if the path is allowed to have corner contact with the outside area.  This is possible even when all of the pentominos are connected face-to-face."

"My best computer result is exactly the same solution that I found on Friday: 52 squares with one corner touching the ouside area, as shown in the attached Excel file.  I will try some different positions for the first few pieces and let you know if this gives any better solutions."
"My program was looking for solutions in which the path length grew faster than these do for the first several pieces (starting with the X), so it couldn't find them.  Fortunately I was able to modify my program to do better. . .  it found the same solutions you showed me and also a NEW solution of 52 units path length!"